Arranging Marriages
by SCWLC
Summary: A contracted marriage to seal a treaty brings about a few changes for a few important people. Zutara. AU. The rating and the secondary genre may change without notice.
1. Prologue

Title: Arranging Marriages

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: As always, I own zip.

Rating: T/PG-13. Possibly will go higher.

Summary: A contracted marriage to seal a treaty brings about a few changes for a few important people. Zutara. AU.

Notes: So, first, this Avatar fic will have no avatar in it. Aang's not here, simply because there is no reason for anyone to find him in his iceberg. Second, this is very much Zutara 'shipping, just so anyone who's here for anything else is warned. Last, the title is subject to change if someone comes up with something better.

* * *

><p>Katara<p>

She could remember it like yesterday the day her mother died. The attack, the screaming, the sight of her mother, chest blackened and staring sightlessly up. That day had changed something in her father, and he'd made a decision that changed her life forever.

Hakoda, terrified that the Fire Nation would return in search of the last waterbender of the South, terrified of losing his children and seeing his people attacked, led them all north. Following the path her grandmother had taken decades before, the whole of the Southern Water Tribe made its way to the Northern, petitioning to be allowed in. They were, and Hakoda was even given a powerful measure of autonomy over his own people, particularly his warriors.

Katara had been eager to learn bending, and at first, learning healing had satisfied her need to learn how to use and control her abilities. But she wanted more, and when none of the male bending masters would teach her, she begged, bribed and blackmailed their students into passing along the techniques they were learning. Waterbending Master "Poophead" Pakku had been very unhappy when it was discovered that Katara was learning bending from his own students.

If there was one thing Katara and her brother agreed on, it was that they never wanted to see their gran seducing anyone ever again. That night had been both very educational and very gross as very gross noises had escaped from Gran-gran's room at the end of the hall.

But Pakku had caved and Katara had learned the bending. She had in fact become his best student, and soon was assigned as Princess Yue's personal maid and secret bodyguard.

Then the Fire Nation attacked. They needed every trained fighter on the walls and Katara wound up on the front lines. She was the one who found the old woman waterbender who had escaped the Fire Nation and brought her within the walls. She was the one who learned old Hama's bloodbending trick, and it was Katara who used every bit of bending from the South Pole, the North Pole, Hama's discovery and every bit of healing and improvisation to become the greatest weapon in the defence of the North Pole.

She didn't know it, but the white uniform she wore had prompted a name for her, spoken of in whispers among the Fire Nation's armies. The White Terror.

* * *

><p>Zuko<p>

Lu Ten was brought home to the palace in a coma. Uncle Iroh had been distracted and somewhat grief-stricken over the near-loss of his son. Zuko didn't really understand, but he was nine and maybe it was a grown-up thing.

Not long after that terrible return, he woke to the sound of a fight in the corridor. He poked his head out of his room and saw his father and uncle fighting. Bending at each other. It wasn't like when the soldiers sparred in the courtyards, this was somehow different. "Ozai, please! Think of what you are doing!" his uncle said.

"I'm removing two weak people from the line to the throne," his father said, and lunged forward at Iroh.

His uncle shook his head, blocking the flame fists sent his way, and replied, "You are making a mistake. Power is not worth what you will lose. He's a _child_!"

Ozai merely snarled at his brother and they clashed again. Zuko watched, horrified, as he realised his father and uncle were fighting for real. He didn't understand why, but they had to stop. They had to. "Stop!" he shouted, trying to get between them, to make them stop trying to hurt each other.

"Zuko!" his mother shouted from somewhere behind him. She sounded frightened.

It was too late. He walked into a flame fist meant for his uncle. The pain was incredible and the nine-year-old went flying. As he hit the wall and everything went dark, he heard an angered roar from his uncle. It would take years for him to gain a clear understanding of what had happened that night.

Iroh, despondently wandering the palace, had discovered the Fire Lord's deal with Ozai. Murder Zuko and he would get the throne. He had rushed to stop his brother, to try to make the man understand the horror and grief that would come with the loss of a child and had been stunned to discover the monster in his brother's skin. The man wouldn't have felt anything at the loss, and Iroh knew that he had to stop Ozai. For his nephew's life, for Ursa so that she would never feel anything like what Iroh was feeling about Lu Ten and for the Fire Nation so that it would never have a horrifying despot like that on the Fire Throne.

Ozai's gloating face as he maimed his son permanently with the comet-shaped burn scar that would cover almost half the boy's face had thrown Iroh into a rage and he had killed his younger brother.

In despair, both over Lu Ten's continuing coma and over the way he had been forced to kill his own brother, Iroh had lost himself in hunting the Spirit World for Lu Ten's soul, hoping that finding his son and bringing him back to the world of the living would make him feel better. Eventually he did return, having found a sort of calm and centre for himself. Lu Ten woke and gradually recovered and even managed to get himself deployed out in one of the repeated attacks on the Northern Water Tribe, coming back with a tale of a waterbender in white that had nearly killed him.

The reason she hadn't was that a truce had been called in the midst of the battle. More than a decade had passed and Fire Lord Azulon had died, leaving the Fire Throne to Iroh. Iroh had immediately put a unilateral stop to the war, one of his messengers getting to the Northern Tribe just in time to bring the fighting to a stop before Lu Ten died for real this time.

* * *

><p>With the Fire Nation pulling out of the fighting, negotiations for treaties and reparations began.<p> 


	2. Arrivals

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: There were concerns mentioned that Katara had become a blooded warrior by the age of ten or some such. Allow me to clarify. Katara is about seven when her mother is killed. At least in my personal timeline. Immediately they move north. Over the next eleven years the war goes on. Katara joins the boys on the front lines around age fifteen and had been fighting for the next three-ish years. This presumes that Ursa didn't murder her father-in-law, so he lived for another ten years. Iroh has only recently come to the throne. I hope this clarifies any issues people may have with Katara's age when she became the so-called White Terror.

* * *

><p>Katara sat behind her best friend and sometime mistress and sometime charge, helping her get her hair into order. "I just can't believe that they're making you marry some prince in the Fire Nation that you've never even met," she said. "It's terrible."<p>

Yue shrugged a little. "At least it's not Hahn," she said with a sigh. "I can only hope he's better than Hahn."

"If the whole peace weren't riding on this, I'd've gone through with helping you and Sokka run away, you know," Katara told her. With a final pat the last locks were put in place and she sat down next to her friend.

In spite of the fact that they were both depressed about the upcoming meeting and eventual wedding, Yue managed a smile. "It was a great plan," she said. "I wanted to see the penguins." She put a hand on Katara's shoulder. "At least now you can put the war behind you."

Shouts from above and the change in the boat's motion told them both that they'd pulled up to the docks and had better get on deck to greet the royal family of the Fire Nation. The two young women, aged eighteen and twenty respectively, made their way to the deck. Outside, the water was a strange and vibrant shade of blue the likes of which neither had ever seen before, while the city, so different from the northern polar city they'd grown up in, was a dazzling array of green foliage, brown earth, red and black flags and roofs, white walls and blue skies. All this was interspersed with flashes of the metal the Fire Nation was so well known for its prowess in making.

Waiting for them on the dock was an older man with grey hair, an older woman with black hair beginning to be streaked with white, and two younger men, one clearly older than the other. Lastly was a bored-looking girl. All of them were dressed in very formal red and black clothing, designed with the imperial dragons and fluttering in the warm breeze.

Katara's eye was drawn, however, to the youngest man there, who had a strangely shaped facial scar. As they got closer, she realised what it was. Someone had burned the young man, causing almost half his face to be covered in red scar tissue. She wrenched her attention back to her surroundings. She was here to be Yue's maid, her friend, and to protect her to the death if need be. The whole point about having a young woman as the princess' bodyguard was that no one would ever expect it, which gave them an advantage over any assassins.

Arnook stepped forward and bowed, saying, "Fire Lord Iroh, I present to you my daughter, Princess Yue." Yue took her cue and bowed to the Fire Lord.

The Fire Lord stepped forward as well, and began his own introductions. "First I present to you Princess Ursa, my brother's widow and mother to Prince Zuko and Princess Azula." The scarred man and the bored woman both bowed. "And your daughter's betrothed, my son, Prince Lu Ten." At that, the older of the two young men bowed. Katara looked him up and down critically. At least he seemed not to have the eternal sense of smug superiority that Hahn had. It was something.

Prince Lu Ten stepped forward, holding out his arm to Yue, and said, "Join me your highness? We should probably become better acquainted." Yue, looking serene as she always did in any situation that made her nervous, put her hand on his arm and let him begin to lead her to a carriage pulled by several matched ostrich horses. Katara followed, but found her way barred as Princess Ursa climbed in after and two guards prevented anyone else from joining them.

"Who is this?" the Fire Lord inquired. Katara turned, putting everything she had into imitating her friend's bearing. The man had a genial smile, but his eyes were sharp, and Katara deliberately tried to relax herself.

The chief glared. "This is the Princess's ladies' maid. It is my wish that she should remain with my daughter." As if he suddenly realised what he was saying, Arnook added, "For the sake of propriety."

"You believe that my sister-in-law is not capable of maintaining propriety?" the Fire Lord asked mildly.

Caught between insulting the Fire Lord an jeopardising the whole affair, and telling the man the truth, which would completely undo the point of Katara's camouflage as a ladies' maid, Arnook stumbled over his words, apologised, then ordered Katara to follow the baggage up to the palace. After all, the warriors accompanying them had already taken one wagon and left, leaving Katara with no other way up to the palace.

Naturally, there was no room anywhere for her to sit, and Katara plonked down on top of one of the chests holding the warm-weather clothes they'd made specifically for Yue's move from the cold climate of the poles to the Fire Nation's tropical temperatures.

Meanwhile, Arnook and the Fire Lord both climbed into a carriage to head to the palace, while Katara was left in the scorching sun to watch Prince Zuko and Princess Azula have a quiet argument that ended in him storming off.

As any good waterbender should, Katara had a waterskin with her, and in moments had soaked a handkerchief, frozen it solid, and placed it on her forehead to try to cool down. "Waterbender, are you?" came a female voice from a little below.

Katara sat up, looked down, and saw Princess Azula giving her a contemplative look. She hastily slid off the cart and into a formal bow. "Can I help you with something, Princess?"

When she looked up, a small smile was playing on the young woman's face. "You _are_ a waterbender, are you not?"

"Yes," Katara said. Then hastily added, "Your highness."

"Maybe, if Princess Yue lets you out we could spar sometime," the princess suggested.

For a flash, a moment, Katara was going to say yes. She wanted to let loose and stop pretending to be demure and ladylike. But she couldn't. "Women are not trained in the combat forms of waterbending," she said evasively.

The princess' face immediately lost all interest. "That's a pity," she said.

As she walked away, Katara frowned. What the princess said implied that she had trained in combative bending, but that didn't make sense. While the Fire Nation _had_ sent women to the front lines, it had been presumed among the tribes that they were doing so due to a limit on capable warriors available. After all, world conquest needs a lot of people to both take over and then hold territory. Perhaps the princess had used her rank to bully someone into teaching her.

Katara shrugged. It wasn't her problem. She turned around and discovered that the brief conversation she'd had, and the following moment of thought, had lost her the ride up to the palace. The wagon had gone without her on it. She was going to have to make her way there on foot. Muttering imprecations about everyone, Katara stomped off, heading uphill. At least she could see where the palace was.

Eventually however, she found herself tired, dusty, a little lost and feeling like she was getting no closer to the palace complex she could see at the top of the city than she'd been before. That was when she spotted a somewhat-familiar face. "Prince Zuko?"

Zuko was doing what he usually did once he'd been set free from his firebending training. Wandering the city aimlessly. With nothing to do, he was usually restless and bored, and the city streets at least had things to look at. He'd made a point of keeping away from people in formal situations, so it wasn't well known what the _other_ prince looked like.

The _other_ prince. That was why he hated being at the palace. He loved his family. His mother was wonderful, Lu Ten had never made him feel like the tagalong younger cousin, his uncle made as much time for him as was reasonable for a national leader with an heir to raise and Azula was getting better all the time with their mother's help.

But that was just the problem, wasn't it? Lu Ten was being groomed to be the next Fire Lord. Iroh's time was all devoted to being the Fire Lord and training his son to take the throne. His sister was still . . . well, she was still Azula, and their mother had her hands full with her, getting her to point her talented firebending and ambition in reasonable directions.

It all left Zuko the choice of having people point and stare at the prince with the scar on his face, muttering in pity, or hiding away. So, he would keep his firebending up to par and then head into the city where he was just another Fire Nation man who'd had an accident while learning bending.

And now this Water Tribe chit was going to ruin it all. He was across the space between them in seconds, telling her, "Be quiet."

She frowned. "Why?"

"I don't want . . ." he trailed off, looking for something to say that made sense.

Oddly, her face suddenly turned compassionate. "You want to be like everyone else for a while?" she asked.

She was right, but the pity on her face to too insulting. "Maybe I just want some peace and quiet," he snapped.

The girl raised an eyebrow at the market, filled with people hawking their wares in loud voices, the clatter of wagons over cobblestones, the cries of animals making a cacophony of lowing, cawing, cackling, bleating, squawking and grunting. The shrieks of children playing rang over it all, and Zuko flushed. "Why aren't _you_ at the palace?" he asked, to take the focus off himself.

With that, she seemed to crumple. "I was supposed to be with Yue, acting as her maid and chaperone, but Princess Ursa was sitting with her and Prince Lu Ten, so I wasn't allowed into the carriage. Then I was told to take the wagon with the luggage on it, since there wasn't any transportation arranged for me. When Princess Azula asked me about sparring with her, the wagon left without me and I've been walking up to the palace." She looked irate, and Zuko couldn't blame her.

"Wasn't there room for you with the other maids?" he asked.

She blinked at him. "What other maids?"

"Doesn't Princess Yue have any other maids with her?" he inquired. "Servants? You could have ridden up with Chief Arnook's entourage."

Shaking her head, the girl said, "There's no entourage, your . . . there's no entourage."

"Call me Zuko," he said. He didn't know where the impulse came from, but she needed his permission to call him by name, and he'd already told her he didn't want to be outed as a prince. It was only fair. That brought up a question, however. "What's your name?"

"Katara," she said, bowing slightly. "Katara of the Southern Water Tribe."

It was his turn to blink. "Southern Water Tribe? I thought the Southern Tribe had been killed off by . . ." he trailed off, realising that finishing that sentence wouldn't do the peace talks any good.

The girl, Katara, was shaking her head. "We went North. After the attack to find and kill me, we left. For protection."

"To kill you?" He hadn't even been aware that they had started walking, but they were out of the market and wending their way slowly through the homes of the upper middle classes. "Why would we have sent troops to kill you, specifically?"

She smiled sadly at him. "You're looking at the last waterbender of the Southern Tribe."

There was nothing to say to that, so Zuko stayed silent. He realised he was leading her to the palace, cutting his afternoon out short, but she was the first person in a very long time to talk to him without treating him like some kind of strange animal and he liked it. Besides which, she wouldn't have gotten into the palace through the gates without someone identifying her. They quietly walked together, heading up to the palace.

After a moment or two of silence, however, Zuko realised he still didn't know, "Why aren't there more servants with you? Chief Arnook should have someone to assist with dressing and . . ." he trailed off at the look of bafflement on her face. "What?"

"If Arnook needed help with dressing himself, he wouldn't be chief," she told him bluntly. "Servants are for serving food, but to have a personal servant like a maid, for a man?" she shook her head. "He might as well just tell people he's weak and effeminate. Only a princess like Yue needs a maid." Then she stared at him. "Are you saying you have a . . . a maid?"

Feeling both amused and affronted, Zuko told her, "A valet. He helps me with putting on my formal robes and keeping my affairs in order."

"How much help do you need with a shirt and pants?" she asked, sounding utterly baffled.

Suddenly curious about the topic of clothes, a first for him really, Zuko asked back, "Is that all your formal clothing is?" Then he realised, "Wait, does this mean that you're the only servant travelling with the Princess and Chief?"

Katara nodded. "The others travelling with us are warriors of the Tribe. Chief Arnook wants to show the strength of the tribe, I suppose."

"Did he bring the White Terror with him?" Zuko asked eagerly.

"The what?" Katara asked, looking rather blank at the question.

"You know," he began.

She interrupted. "No, I don't know."

Exasperated, Zuko told her, "The White Terror. The waterbender that singlehandedly destroyed the Eighth."

Katara frowned in concentration, then said, "Was that the one with the ships that were flying an Unagi flag?"

"Yes," Zuko said. "Who is he?"

The maid looked deeply uncomfortable and told him, "If Chief Arnook wants to tell people who that is, he will. I'm not going to say anything without his consent."

It suddenly occurred to Zuko that he was asking for what might well be top military secrets of her nation. "Sorry," he said sincerely. "It's just that whoever the White Terror is must be the greatest bender in the tribes to be able to down a whole fleet."

"First," she said in annoyance, "It wasn't a whole fleet, it was two ships. The other fighters had dealt with the fleet. Second, one of them was stopped right between two icebergs, and it w . . . would have been child's play to hold the ship in place for the warriors to take it. Third," she said, "The last ship had an actual map of the water conduits running through the whole ship. All it took was bursting all the pipes at once to sink it."

"You know him!" Zuko accused.

Katara stared at him, startled. "What?"

"You know him. Personally," Zuko said. "Did he give you any training in bending?" He was so eager

"Women are not warriors," she snapped, looking quite strained.

That was just . . . "What?"

She sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just that . . ." she trailed off, seeming to search for something to say.

They had reached the palace walls, and Zuko realised that he was going to have to get his hair back into its topknot and his crown in place before they went through the main gates. He could have taken her in the back way, but it would be best if the palace guards knew who she was and that she had the right to move in and out of the palace on her own. So he dropped the topic and said, "Just a minute. I need to get my topknot back and my crown on before we go in."

The maid stopped, giving him a look that was clearly grateful for his dropping it, and waited as he struggled and cursed, trying to pull his hair back smoothly and get everything centred properly. This was part of why he liked sneaking out. He didn't have to have everything back in place by the time he got to the gates, he could just ask his valet or a dresser to fix it for him. After he'd cursed one too many times, she giggled, and said, "Does your highness need assistance?"

Before he could say anything either way, she'd whipped a comb out of some hidden pocket or other, and had his unruly mop tamed and smoothly bound up in the knot he'd wanted. She held out a hand to him, and it took Zuko a moment to realise she was waiting for him to put the crown in her hand.

Technically, no one but the royal family and certain elite servants were supposed to ever touch the royal crown. He hesitated. But he'd never get it in straight himself, no matter how often he tried he just couldn't land it in the middle, and she was right there. Telling himself that she was in the same position as those few elite servants, only in a different nation, Zuko handed it to her and felt it slide into place. "Thank you," he said, turning around only to find himself nose-to-nose with her.

Her eyes were a stunning shade of blue that reminded him of the waters around Ember Island.

They both took a sudden step backwards away from each other. "Thank you for getting me to the palace," she replied.

In the suddenly awkward silence, Zuko took her to the gates, introduced her to the guards, letting them know she was to have the same rights as any of the other upper-level servants in the palace, then pointed her towards the wing where Princess Yue was supposed to reside until she and Lu Ten were married. Then they parted ways.


	3. Impressions

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: This is shorter than I'd originally planned, but you've all been so wonderful at not sending me mean comments about my lateness, that I thought I'd best post something. So, here you are.

* * *

><p>Katara hurried to Yue's rooms, following the detailed directions Prince Zuko had given her. He seemed like a nice enough person, so she had hope that his cousin Lu Ten would have been equally as decent for Yue.<p>

She arrived at the door to find two Fire Nation soldiers and two Water Tribesmen glaring at each other. Katara tried to slip around them and through the door, but one blue-clad hand and one red-clad grabbed her at the same time. "Who are you and why are you trying to get into the Princess' rooms?" demanded the tribesman.

"It's me, Aruak," Katara said with rolled eyes. "Remember me? Katara? You once said you'd marry me out of pity because you thought my father would get you-"

A muffled snort of laughter from the Fire Nation soldier interrupted her. "You tried to get a girl to marry you by telling her it was out of pity?"

"I didn't!" yelped that lying liar.

The door opened, and Yue said, "I was there, Aruak," she said. "You told Katara that she was too manly to bear, but that you'd be willing to do it for her father's influence."

The second Fire soldier looked her up and down, looking confused, and said, "Manly?"

Toltak, the second of the Tribesmen, sighed and said, "No wonder you're still single Aruak. If you'd just lied and told her she was pretty and you were in love with her, you might have gotten somewhere."

That kind of statement, the open admission that she wasn't womanly enough, was just something Katara was used to by this point. Yue was bristling in her own quiet way, however. Before she could say anything, the first soldier peered at Katara and repeated, "Manly?" He said, "If a girl with curves like that is manly, I think I'd better move to the North Pole. Girls there've gotta be _hot_."

The leer he and his counterpart aimed at her were disturbing and skeevy and yet some small part of Katara preened, because he thought she was . . . _hot_. The boys at home never leered at her and thought she was attractive. It actually felt kind of nice.

Yue glared around impartially, and said, "Gentlemen, if you're all here to guard me, then you can all stand guard together. I don't want to hear anything more from any of you." She pulled Katara into the room. "Where have you been?"

"I had to ride up with the baggage, then Princess Azula got me distracted and I missed the cart leaving and had to walk all the way up," Katara explained. "I was lucky I ran into Prince Zuko on the way." Then she asked the question that had been worrying her the most ever since she'd heard her friend was marrying some Fire Nation prince she'd never met before. "What's your prince like?"

"He seems nice," she said, considering. "He did seem terribly interested in meeting the White Terror," added the princess. "That's-"

"What they call me here," Katara said with a sigh. "I heard from Zuko. He seemed pretty interested too," she added wryly.

"Well," Yue said, "Lu Ten said he wanted to meet the man who almost killed him."

"What?" Katara gasped.

Yue nodded. "Apparently, you had nearly killed him right when the call went out to withdraw," she explained. "You know, when news of the treaty arrived."

Katara recalled that last battle. She'd been in a fight with a firebender, one of the best she'd ever faced. The fight had gone on so long she had felt nothing but relief when she'd gotten him to his knees and been about to strike the killing blow. She'd been too tired then to feel anything else. When the retreat had sounded, she'd been confused and then doubly relieved she wouldn't have to kill anyone else that day.

"That was Prince Lu Ten?" she asked, gaping. "I nearly killed the crown prince?"

Yue patted her hand. "Well, you didn't, it's fine, and we need to get ready for dinner."

Katara immediately stood, saying, "You need to get ready for dinner. I'm just a maid, remember."

"Right," Yue said, taking a deep breath. "So, I was thinking of the new gown, the one with the beading on the dress hem."

Katara nodded, and the both distracted themselves with discussions of small inane things, like which hair ornaments to wear with the dress. Then Yue left and Katara poked her head out to ask the guards where she could get some dinner.

Zuko found himself sitting next to Princess Yue at the head table for the feast in honour of Lu Ten's future wife. She was very polite and her conversation was unexceptionable and a little dull. Then the conversation turned to the White Terror.

"Perhaps," his uncle suggested, "You might consider bringing the warrior we know here as the White Terror to the Fire Nation, Chief Arnook. I had been toying with the notion of a bending competition including all three nations. It would be excellent auspices for such an endeavour if we were to include him."

Princess Yue tensed up. In fact, Zuko realised the entire Water Tribe delegation had tensed up. "I do not believe that would be possible." Chief Arnook sent the most insincere smile Zuko had ever seen at the Fire Lord. "You see, the . . . warrior in question has chosen to give up all bending of an aggressive nature."

If he hadn't been sitting next to Yue, if he hadn't already been aware there was something about the White Terror that was concerning to Yue's maid, he might not have caught it. But the princess picked up her cup, and under cover of the motion sent a look that could only be anger toward her father. Then she leaned around Zuko a little, and pretended to ignore the political manoeuvring going on amongst the leaders. "Princess Azula, my maid informs me that you had asked her to spar with you. I take it that means you have learnt to bend as a fighting form."

Wondering if he was the only one who noticed the abrasive undertone to Yue's voice, Zuko barely caught the answer. "Of course," Azula said. "It's my best skill."

"I assume you do well against other benders in matches then," Yue said inquiringly.

"I can beat Zuzu . . . I mean, Zuko," his sister started with her usual condescending smile, "Every time."

He chose not to rise to the bait. He'd given up on trying to convince people that Azula was expressing her belief that he was a stupid, sub-par human and not worthy to be related to her when she called him that. No one believed him and he was tired of being told he was oversensitive.

Not that any forbearance helped when he was faced with the sneers on the faces of the Water Tribesmen.

Lu Ten chose to take pity on him. "Zuko may not be a bending prodigy as my cousin Azula is, but the master of the blades in the palace has long since declared him to be a prodigy of the blade. I know of no one who has yet bested Zuko in a match with his swords." He smiled around, amicably. "In fact, I know that he is the one who primarily trains the soldiers in bladework every week's end."

"Truly?" one of the Water Tribesmen spoke up. "Perhaps he might be interested in working with some of my men."

Arnook looked uncomfortable. "That wouldn't-"

A mischievous smile on her face, Yue interrupted her father and said, "I think that would be a very interesting exercise. Hakoda, when did you get here?"

"I docked a few hours after you did," the man replied. "It was that or stay home and help drive off the penguins. They've invaded, to the joy of the children."

"Penguins?" inquired Iroh mildly. "I thought those only existed at the South Pole."

The man, Hakoda, shrugged. "Now that the war is over, I've been able to bring my people home," he said. "I decided I'd best be along while I could to see what the situation with the Fire Nation truly was."

"I'm sorry?"

The look on Arnook's face, what Katara had said before, it came together in Zuko's head. "Then we should welcome you, Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe." The flummoxed looks on everyone's faces except Yue and Hakoda's made a grin stretch Zuko's lips. "I would be most honoured to spar with your warriors."

His mother looked a little stricken. "Pardon me," she said hastily. "I am remiss in my duties as hostess." She was already signalling to the servants, clearly attempting to deal with the tremendous faux pas of sitting a foreign leader with the mere aides.

"It's no trouble," Hakoda said with a smile. "We of the Southern Tribe are a great deal less formal than the North. I'd much rather sit with my men and talk without worry about court games, than sit up there and play politics."

He didn't even realise he was speaking until the words were already coming out of his mouth. "Perhaps then, mother, I'll go and join Hakoda and his warriors, to ensure they have not been ignored." He smiled, "After all, it would be rather churlish of us to pull him away from his meal now that he's settled."

With the barest of acceptances from his mother, Zuko left his place of honour near the head of the table and fled with some relief to the far end where Hakoda sat, trailed by anxious servants carrying his plate, utensils and cups. As he settled into the place that had been opened up next to the chief of the Southern Tribe, he sighed and relaxed. "That bad up there?" Hakoda asked him.

Zuko made a face. "I'm the son of the disgraced younger brother of the Fire Lord," Zuko said. "On top of that, I'm the worst bender in the family. So no one really cares anything about me when they've got Lu Ten the Crown Prince and Azula, my sister, who's a bending prodigy and also a little crazy." He shrugged. "If you're down here not to play politics, but to eat and talk about things that aren't manipulating foreigners to best advantage or putting down the corrupt nobles without anyone noticing, I'd just as soon be here."

The chief laughed. "That's why I have Arnook up there negotiating. He can do all the heavy lifting, and I'll throw in a word or two about agreements my tribe can't live up to." He shot a considering look at Zuko. "Still, you train the soldiers in swordwork? How is this a . . . bad thing?"

"A bender should neither have nor need any weapon but himself," Zuko quoted with a sigh.

Hakoda stared at him. "That's the reason for rampant Fire Nation stupidity?" he asked in disbelief. "Your people have become so convinced of your superiority you think benders are invulnerable to swords?" The gape changed to a frown. "They look down on you because you have cultivated your strengths?"

But the question cut too close to home, and Zuko gracelessly changed the subject. "I don't have much to do to fill my time," he said. "Perhaps I could spar with some of your men tomorrow?"

"That would be agreeable," Hakoda said with a nod, allowing Zuko to steer away from the painful topic of his family's benign and accidental neglect.

After a few minutes of discussion they picked a time to meet on the drilling grounds for the palace guards. It was about at that moment, the soft conversation at the head table erupted. Arnook stood and shouted at Zuko's uncle, "I have said that the," his voice changed to inject sarcasm into the word, "Warrior, who you all call the White Terror will not be seen or paraded in front of the Fire Nation!"

Then the man was storming out and Princess Yue was making surprisingly adept apologies on his behalf. Zuko shot a look at Hakoda. "Is there something we should be aware of about the . . . uh . . . White Terror?"

"That . . . warrior, is being kept a secret for a variety of reasons," Hakoda said, a little darkly. "I have my own for allowing the concealment to continue, which is the only reason I'm allowing Arnook to get away with this minimisation of h . . . their role."

Several thoughts flashed through Zuko's mind, Katara's statements that women weren't to be trained in combat bending, and the interchange Yue had started. He said in an undertone to Hakoda, "The White Terror is a woman." At the man's sharp look, Zuko continued, "Arnook is hiding this for some reason that I can't quite fathom. That's why Princess Yue and her maid Katara are so . . . uncomfortable about the topic."

The look on Hakoda's face was unfathomable as he said, "Yes, her . . . maid." Then he shook his head. "The roles of the sexes are very defined in the Northern Tribes. Arnook does not wish to have his weakness in relying on a woman bandied about."

Zuko narrowed his eyes. "You don't have similar reservations?"

"There are too many women in the Fire Nation's armies and navy for me to feel that her sex would alter the opinion of the Fire Nation in any significant way, but Arnook and his seconds feel their reliance on her made them effeminate."

Processing this, Zuko said, "You have other reasons for hiding her."

"I do," Hakoda said. "And you will not be speaking of this to anyone," he added. The dark look on his face made Zuko nod and change the topic to comparative weaponry and whether polearms were better than weapons for close fighting and the advantages and disadvantages to the two. The rest of the evening passed with relative pleasantness, and Zuko enjoyed the chatter of Hakoda's warriors, who were rather like the soldiers in the barracks, in that no one talking had an agenda, which meant that it didn't matter what he said to whom as long as he wasn't being insulting.

He went to bed that night, thinking about how nice it might be to live somewhere that, not only could he succeed on his own merits, but that no one would play stupid games just because they could.


	4. Meetings

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: So I was all set to go on vacation and get lots of writing done, and at midnight before I left, I spontaneously became sick, so I'm in a city on the far side of the country, three time zones away from where I started and my hotel room has no desk. I haven't been able to leave to get anything done for the first couple days, because it's impossible for me to work in my hotel room, and I couldn't breathe well enough to want to go that far because I couldn't get further than the restaurant in my hotel. Anyhow, this is much belated, but I hope to pick up now that my father has given me the plot point I needed to move on to the next plot point I'd had planned.

* * *

><p>Katara was curled up on a pile of cushions, happily reading one of the scrolls the librarian had so ungraciously parted from when Yue finally returned from the state dinner. Before anything else could be said, she told Katara, "Your father's here. He's staying with the rest of the warriors in the barracks. Don't worry about me, I can undress on my own."<p>

"Are you-"

"Go!" Yue urged with a smile. "I know you miss him."

Katara smiled gratefully at her friend and hurried off down the halls. Unfortunately, while her memory for directions wasn't bad, there was a terrible sameness to the halls, and Katara soon found herself in the wrong section of the palace entirely, well aware the guards were looking sideways at this Water Tribeswoman wandering about, which only made her hurry more in her attempts to at least find her way back out again. She was so intently searching the walls for some recognisable indicator that she had been in that particular hallway before she entirely missed that someone was walking toward her.

That is, she missed it until she ran nearly headlong into him, sending them both to the floor in an uncomfortable sprawl of limbs. Scrambling to her feet, Katara discovered that she had just mowed down Prince Zuko. "Oh no," she moaned. "I'm so sorry!"

With a glare that should have, by rights, set her on fire, Prince Zuko hauled himself up and snapped, "These are the halls of the Royal Quarters. What are you doing here?"

Shamefacedly, Katara half mumbled, "I got lost."

"What?" he said, sounding a tad baffled.

She spoke up. "I got lost. Yue told me I could go and see m – the warriors from the Southern Tribe, and that they were staying out in the barracks, but I must have taken a wrong turn and every hallway here looks the same, and then I wound up here and I've been trying to figure out how to get out of here."

"Why didn't you ask the guards?" he sounded amused.

"They were all glaring so much," Katara admitted. "I was worried that if I actually asked one something they'd . . . I don't know."

He just looked at her for a moment or two, then shook his head, sighed, and said, "I just came from there. I'll show you down."

"Thank you," Katara said, smiling gratefully. They started walking in silence, but Katara couldn't stand it and finally asked, "So, were you just showing the warriors around or . . ." she trailed off, unsure of what else he might have been doing.

He turned and fixed her with a steady, if unreadable look. "I was arranging a time to spar with some of Chief Hakoda's warriors," he said. "At dinner we got to talking about . . . things, and I was offered the chance to spar with them." He turned forward again.

Katara sighed in irritation. This was, in it's way, as bad as being in the Northern Tribe. Everyone was so determined that she wasn't . . . something enough to be involved in things, and now that she was here as a ladies' maid, she was even more out of the loop. "What else did I miss?" she asked a little bitterly. "By being too low-class to be involved in the important stuff."

"I really wouldn't know," the prince told her. "I left to go sit with Chief Hakoda as soon as possible. It was better than listening to everyone go on about my being a disappointment." He froze, whipped around and snapped with a glare, "You'll say nothing of what I just said to anyone!"

Katara stared and wondered why anyone would think he was a disappointment. He seemed reasonably intelligent. "Why would anyone think that?"

He suddenly sighed and seemed almost to sag. "Because I'm not a prodigy like my sister or my father and I'm not anyone important. I'm just the failure son of the psychotic younger brother of the Fire Lord." His voice was filled with a very familiar sort of bitterness.

"At least they think you ought to be able to do things," Katara replied with her own bitterness. "Since I'm a girl, everyone in the Northern Tribe seems to think that I shouldn't be able to do anything but sit still and look pretty." In the spirit of confession that seemed to have taken hold of them both, she said, "I may want to move to the Fire Nation, since this is the first place I've been told I managed the second."

He stopped, forcing her to stop, and stepped back to look her over. Then he said in tones of unbelievably flattering bafflement, "Why would anyone _not_ think you're pretty?"

But going into that would be too complicated and Katara couldn't explain it all without telling him things she shouldn't. So she just shrugged and looked away. He seemed to get it and let her be, walking her the rest of the way in silence. When they got to the barracks, he said, "Here you are. And to get back to Princess Yue's rooms, you just have to go through those doors," he pointed to a different set of doors to the courtyard they were in from the ones they'd entered by. "Then you walk until you reach the painting of the Fire Lady with six sparrowkeets and turn left. It's straight down that hall."

"Thank you, your highness," Katara said, bowing. Then, feeling daring, she told him, "And you shouldn't listen to those people who think you're a failure. You don't seem like one to me."

Before he could respond to that, she fled into the barracks, running into her father almost immediately. "Dad!"

"How are you doing, Puppy-seal?" he asked. Katara sighed and just relaxed against someone who had never said a word against her bending and thrown her so-called suitors out of the house when they started explaining what a great favour they were doing for him, marrying his mannish daughter. She couldn't even say anything against his fatherly compliments about how pretty she was, because even though she knew you couldn't trust a father to be truly objective about how pretty his kids were, it was still nice to hear sometimes.

"So far, so good," she said with a smile. "Actually, I'm starting to like it here a little. Think about being able to go down to the beach and swim year round," Katara declared grinning. She wasn't going to tell him that the Fire Nation men were weird and that she was feeling pretty flattered with all the armadillo wolf whistles she was getting. If they thought she was pretty here, it might be worth sticking it out where she could find someone who actually wanted her, not the possible social leg up the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe could offer.

She wouldn't say this to her father, ever, and he just smiled and said, "So, tell me about things. How's Yue doing?"

"She seems to be doing alright, but it's hard to tell. After all, I'm just the maid, so I wasn't able to be at dinner." She sighed. "Honestly, I'm a little worried. I mean, it wasn't all that long ago she was hoping to marry Sokka."

Her father's eyes went wide, and that was when Katara remembered she hadn't told him that, and neither had Sokka. "Yue . . . and Sokka?" her father said, eyes wide. "My Sokka? Your brother?"

Katara rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dad. Sokka. I don't get it either, but I don't have to."

His eyes wide, Hakoda said, "So that's why he wanted to stay home."

She just smiled wryly at him and they sat down together to catch up on everything they'd missed.

* * *

><p>Why had he said those things to her? Zuko wondered. He didn't know. Perhaps it was because she would be leaving with the rest of the Water Tribe and he would never see her again once Princess Yue had married Lu Ten. Maybe because she seemed to be really listening to what he had to say instead of dismissing it as the jealous ravings of the lost elder son of the traitor Ozai.<p>

What he did know was that he liked people judging him on what he had achieved and what his skills were, rather than constantly being treated as somehow wrong, just because he wasn't as good or important as Lu Ten and Azula. It wasn't just that, though. There was a complete lack of artifice, it seemed, among the Southern Tribe's warriors. He'd sparred briefly with the man, Bato, and the following discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of their two styles and not once had anything been a serious dig at him or Bato or anyone else. Jokes had been made, but openly, with no subtext.

As he reached his rooms, he realised that he'd forgotten to make further plans for the next day to spend some proper time sparring with Hakoda's men. He waffled a moment, then turned around and headed back. He got there in time to see Katara hugging Bato and saying, "Goodbye Bato, it was good to see you again."

"Hey, we'll be around for a while," the man told her. "Besides, how could I avoid my favourite niece?"

She smiled and seemed about to say something when she noted Zuko. "Your highness!"

Zuko bowed slightly and said, "I had forgotten to arrange a time to meet with Chief Hakoda tomorrow to spend some time training with his warriors. If you can wait, I will walk you back to Princess Yue's rooms."

She nodded, "I'd be grateful."

Hakoda arrived then, saying, "I heard," before Zuko explained a second time. "Perhaps if we might meet at dawn? My men are not used to such warm weather, and we might as well ensure we are working before the height of the day's hit strikes."

Zuko nodded in acquiescence and said, "At dawn then. I assume on the attached practice grounds?"

"Of course." Hakoda nodded and Zuko bowed to him, then left to collect Katara and keep her from getting lost on her way back.

For a while they walked in silence, but after a few minutes the silence seemed to have begun to bother her. "So . . . um . . . you must be good if the warriors want to spar with you a second time."

"I suppose I am," Zuko said, unsure of how to respond to that statement. He _was_ good, but how to say such a thing without sounding ridiculously self-aggrandising? The question reminded him of something, however. "I noticed something when Princess Yue arrived at dinner earlier," he said. "Her sash, the way it was folded."

Katara frowned. "What about it?" she asked. "That's the best way to fold it. It looks best with her dress and really emphasises her figure well."

Zuko winced, but breathed a sigh of relief nonetheless. "I don't know about the Water Tribes, but in the court here, there are different ways of folding sashes like that which are only available to those of particular ranks," he explained. "Probably Uncle - the Fire Lord chose not to say anything, but the way her sash was folded is only to be worn by the concubine of a prince or the Fire Lord."

She stopped dead, going pale. "Concubine? Oh no . . ." Abruptly she turned to him and said, "Tomorrow, I know you're going to train with the Southern warriors, but could you talk me through that? And is there anything else I need to know about sashes and stuff? Or maybe a servant who'll keep it quiet?"

Zuko knew that there wasn't a single servant in the whole palace complex who could be trusted to keep quiet. It was also clear off the bat that the lack of formality in the Water Tribes meant there might be a lot of mistakes Katara, and consequently Yue, could never have known about. Bad enough to live in the nest of vipers that was his palace home, but to not know where the pitfalls were. "After the noon meal?" he suggested.

Her shoulders sagged in relief. "Thank you, your highness."

With that, the awkward silence between them was banished as he began to take her through the complexities of court traditions and clothing in the Fire Nation. When they arrived at the princess' door, Katara easily invited him in, saying, "Really, all that about degrees of bows you should explain to Yue directly."

Late into the night they talked, Zuko learning as much as the girls did from the comparisons they made to their own traditions and customs. Eventually he had to take his leave and left them both with the promise to talk both Katara and Yue through the things they needed to know.

Finally on his own again, Zuko headed straight for the library, knowing that there were feminine details he would never know, and needing to collect some of the etiquette scrolls for reference. "Interesting reading choice, Zuzu," Azula told him with a sneer as she stepped out of the shadows. Startled, but trying not to show it, Zuko ignored her, knowing he not only would lose any exchange between them, but that nothing he did would gain him any satisfaction.

"Oh, is my big brother so lost in his own thoughts he can't see the obvious?" Azula crooned.

Knowing it was a bad idea, he replied, "Why do you feel the need to sneak up on me?" he asked heavily. "We both know I'm a failure, so you don't have to prove anything. I get that you find it fun to startle me, but doesn't doing the same thing over and over get boring?"

She sneered. "Are you so in search of novelty that you have to waste your time with the Water wenches?"

"Is it so alien to you that someone might be nice to another person?" Zuko asked. "Oh, wait, is it because you're not human enough to understand that other people might sometimes do things just to be nice because some people actually care about other people?"

Azula laughed raucously. "You're a riot! Care about other people? Even Uncle isn't _that_ pathetic. We're the royal family, Zuko. Other people are here to cater to our needs." An ugly look crossed her face. "Father understood that."

Bitterly, Zuko said, "Father understood that killing me was his way to convince Grandfather to put him on the throne. You'll forgive me if I happen to think that's not an appealing example to follow."

She snorted. "Oh, stop holding a grudge, Zuko. That was pragmatism, not anything personal."

"That's kind of the problem," Zuko told her.

Before he could add anything, she said, "You and mother, on and on about feelings and family and caring. It's so _weak_." She glanced over, saw one of the palace cats, kept there to keep the elephant rat population down and sent a jet of fire at the poor thing's tail, then giggled when it yowled in pain.

"Azula," their mother's voice chided from the door. "What have I told you?"

With her back still turned, Azula rolled her eyes. "The pain of other creatures is not entertainment." Her voice had transformed to a sickly sweetness that made Zuko's blood boil. "I was just so _angry_ after Zuzu kept telling me that I'm inhuman." She turned, her face transforming from pure malice to injured innocence.

He'd lost right then, and Zuko didn't wait for his mother to chide him for harassing sweet, innocent Azula. Ursa knew what her daughter was, but she refused to consider that her hard work with Azula wasn't taking, it was just teaching the girl how to lie better. "I know, Mother," Zuko snapped. "I'm at fault for everything that goes wrong with Azula, and I'm apparently baiting her, because when she's alone with me she must just be such a paragon."

He fled before his mother could reply, taking the scrolls with him. As he left, he found the poor traumatised cat, shaking in the hall, and he picked it up, seeing the end of its tail blistered and burned. He coaxed it into his arms, feeling a sense of kinship for the animal, because his mother would be so busy gently chiding Azula she'd forget about the animal soon enough, he had no doubt. Somehow his steps took him right back to Yue's rooms, where he interrupted some argument or other she was having with the guards while Katara looked embarrassed and miserable in the background.

"Katara," Zuko said, "Could I come in a moment?"

Looking grateful for the interruption, Katara opened the door, letting him past the irate Yue and her guards. "I wish she'd stop that," Katara muttered.

Zuko frowned. "Stop what?" he asked.

"Nothing," Katara said, then added, "Yelling at them for being nasty to me. It just doesn't help."

A wry smile touched Zuko's lips. He knew that feeling, too. The look on Katara's face kept him from enquiring too closely, and he said, "My sister just burned this poor cat's tail, I was wondering if you could maybe see if you could ice the burn while I get something to treat it."

Katara's eyes were wide and horrified. "Burned?" she gasped. "Why would she?"

"She just likes to do things like that," Zuko said flatly. "She takes a lot after our father."

The waterbender's jaw set, and she said, "Let me see. I can do better than just icing a burn."

Then Zuko saw one of the most amazing things he'd ever seen. With a gesture Katara pulled water out of the waterskin she always carried with her, enveloped the cat's tail and healed the burn before his eyes. Where before there was scorched skin and fur, there was now smooth and unblemished skin. "That's . . ." Zuko trailed off, impressed.

She shrugged. "I can't make the fur grow back, but it should come back on it's own."

"That's amazing," Zuko told her sincerely. "Can all waterbenders do that?"

Katara's jaw tightened in sudden irritation. "Theoretically," she said. "But only women learn to heal with their bending," she explained, "The same as men only learn to fight. And no one gets to learn the other." There was a snap to her words.

Yue abruptly appeared. "Prince Zuko," she said formally. "I do thank you for the kind loan of these scrolls and your offer of assistance tomorrow, but I wish to retire for the night." The underlying message was quite clear, and Zuko knew he couldn't stay much longer anyhow.

"Of course," he said, standing and bowing. He took his leave, finally making his way back to his rooms. For the first time, he had something to truly look forward to the next day, and despite everything that had gone wrong that evening, it had been good more than it had been bad.


	5. Getting Acquainted

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: Almost to the part of the story I want to get to, almost there. To everyone still following along, thank you.

* * *

><p>The next morning Katara woke to the cat she'd healed the night before purring on her chest. "Good morning," she said to it. The cat stood, stretched, bumped its head against her chin and then hopped to the floor, sauntering off with insouciance.<p>

Getting out of bed, Katara crossed over to the door to Yue's room, waking her friend up and helping her into the concoction of fancy dress she had to wear that day. The princess had just finished the last touches on her clothing when there was a knock at the door and the guards announced the arrival of Prince Lu Ten. "Please do allow him entrance," Yue said graciously.

Katara hurried about in the background, making tea and arranging food on a small tray for the pair while they talked about inconsequentials. "Katara, please join us," Yue said, gesturing at the seat next to her. "You are my friend more than a maid, and if Prince Zuko is willing to speak with us both as equals I am sure Prince Lu Ten can be similarly gracious."

An eyebrow shot up on the prince's face, but his face immediately smoothed and he betrayed no other surprise as he shifted on his cushion to include Katara in the conversation. Before she could stop herself, Katara said, "This had better not be like the time you made me come with you on that date with my brother."

Yue's head immediately dropped into her hands and Lu Ten's lips twitched. Katara felt her face turn red. "Well," Yue said as she straightened up, "Anyone who thinks you're not Sokka's sister should accept this proof."

"Can't we just pretend I never said that and start over," Katara muttered.

Lu Ten laughed. "I think I'll enjoy your company a lot, the both of you," he said. "No dissembling, just straightforward honesty."

Yue smiled, a little sadly, and Katara put a hand over her friend's to comfort her. Yue and Sokka had had all kinds of plans. Everything from the construction of their home in the South Pole, (which had had much reference to Katara fixing up the bits that they couldn't do on their own), to how many children they had, to how they were going to eat, since Yue didn't know how to cook and Sokka could burn water.

Lu Ten seemed to notice something was wrong, and he promptly tried to cheer them both up, suggesting a trip to the marketplace. "Maybe you should try wearing Fire Nation clothes too," he said, offhandedly. "Just in case . . . well . . . there are still some people in the capital who don't quite understand the war's over."

Katara shot a look at Yue, she was the one in charge, after all. Yue looked down at her overwhelming and heavy clothing, at Katara's comfortable leggings and light over-tunic, and Katara would have bet she was thinking about Princess Azula's fairly skimpy clothing. "If you would be so kind as to make arrangements for both myself and Katara to have such clothes made available to us, it would be appreciated."

It wasn't long before he returned with a servant woman in tow, carrying a pile of red clothing. Katara looked at Yue, then giggled. "Pick out what you like, and then we'll just ask if no one but a concubine would wear something that scandalous."

A moment later the princess was acting as childishly as Katara had ever seen, burrowing through the clothing and coming up with a top that appeared designed to cover as little as possible, with bare shoulders and a bare midriff, and a pair of leggings that were covered by some sort of draping cloth that gave the impression of a skirt without truly being one.

Then she vanished into the attached bathing room, dragging Katara with her. It took them a little while to figure out which lacings went where, but soon enough Yue was smiling happily as her slender figure was being shown to a stunning advantage and the red was surprisingly flattering on her dark skin. With her white hair, she looked extremely exotic, and she emerged to the sight of Lu Ten's jaw dropping to the floor.

"Now you," she said to Katara.

The princess didn't take 'no', as she picked through the clothing and nearly ordered Katara into clothes that resembled nothing so much as the nearly military clothing the Princess Azula seemed to favour. Katara stood in front of the mirror, seeing a gleeful Yue behind her, and felt her back straightening. For a moment she almost felt . . . herself again.

She'd felt off and wrong ever since the war ended, ever since they didn't need her anymore (the white terror, a voice in her head whispered), and in desperation had shoved her into this role to get her out of the public eye. The leather lashed around her lower arms, that would let her block a hit with them without injury, the way the leather was placed on her, to act like armour, and all the clothing was loose and tight in all the right places. Then she remembered what she was there for, knew that there would be enough trouble when Arnook saw his daughter dressed like Fire Nation and knew she would forget herself if she wasn't careful. She wasn't a warrior anymore, she was a woman. The sooner she accepted that and stepped away again, the sooner she'd stop feeling uncomfortable in the back of her head.

"No, I don't . . . really like this one," she said instead. A few minutes later she had picked out an outfit like the one Yue was wearing and they headed out to spend the morning at the city markets. It was different and exciting to look at the wares. While there had been trade with the Earth Kingdoms over the years, the culture there was variegated such that items from one Earth Kingdom place could bear no resemblance to those from another. And the trade with the areas conquered by the Fire Nation had been restricted down to nothing, so the wares for sale in the market were almost entirely out of the girls' experience.

Katara bought a lovely pair of gloves designed for working with hot things to give her gran and new knives for her father and brother, made of that non-rusting metal invented by the Fire Nation. It was noon when they both recalled that they had plans to meet up with Zuko, and they hurried back to be there and ready to meet the younger prince.

After spending the meal watching Arnook scold his daughter for dressing in a way he thought was disgustingly immodest, Katara was just relieved to get back to their rooms to talk with Zuko.

In fact, as he came in the door, Yue greeted him calmly and formally, and then asked his assistance in explaining what would be the most appropriate clothing for her rank and station. "Well," he began, "That partially depends on what weapons you carry-"

"Weapons?" Katara and Yue chorused.

Zuko looked confused at their confusion. "Of course," he said. "Mai, who I dated for a while, specialises in knives, so she tends to clothing with looser sleeves because it makes it easier to get at them and her shuriken. Ty Lee, who's one of my sister's childhood friends, is trained in chi manipulation, so her clothes are designed so that she'll be harder to grab by them, since she has to get in so close. I know my mother's strength is in the kama, so she's forever looking for loose clothes that will both conceal them, and give her easy access . . . what?" he asked.

"Do all women in the Fire Nation learn a weapon?" Yue asked curiously.

"How else are they to defend themselves from assassination attempts?" Zuko asked, looking baffled. "Any assassin worth his salt will get past the guards, that's the easy part." He shook his head, "It's not that the guards don't stop them, there have been four attempts alone in the past month over my uncle deciding to have Lu Ten marry a foreigner."

"How can you speak so casually of the fact that your own people want you dead?" Yue gasped.

The prince continued to look confused. "What do you mean the people? That's just the nobles. They have their agendas, and sending assassins is just part of the political game."

"And they don't just ask to speak to him about it in order to negotiate a compromise?" Yue gasped.

"Uncle usually judges who he needs to speak with most by how competent the assassin hired was. The more money spent on competence, the more likely they feel strongly about it." He shrugged. "That's part of why assassination is covered alongside roof walking and stealth at the Royal Academy."

Yue's eyes were wide, and she suddenly frowned in concentration. "I had wondered what the donations of fishing rights had to do with making the negotiations complete," she said. "This must be it."

"What?" Prince Zuko asked.

Katara suddenly caught on. "They wanted extra assurances and payment for taking on a Princess who doesn't meet their standards." She turned to Prince Zuko. "Yue has been raised properly for the Water Tribes. She has no skill in any weapons."

"You don't?" he asked, "I mean, I'd heard that women weren't warriors in the Water Tribes, but . . ."

"_I_ think it has to do with the men thinking that a woman who could fight is claiming that she doesn't trust the skills of the so-superior men around her," Katara grumbled.

"Well, then perhaps we should see what we can do about arranging lessons for you in some weapon you would do well with," Zuko said practically. "In the meanwhile, let's just see where we can meet in the middle."

A few hours passed as they talked, the conversation ranging away from just what Yue needed to wear and moving into comparing the two cultures. Yue finally asked, "Why aren't you bringing your sister to this? I do appreciate you taking the time to explain these things, but-"

Katara saw the shuttered look and said, "She's not . . . quite right, is she?"

Bitter, the prince told them, "No, but I'm the only one who's ever tried saying it. People think I'm jealous, and . . . just be careful around her."

They talked further, moving on to other topics, including where Yue could find someone to discreetly help her learn a weapon, and making plans for Katara to meet with Zuko when Yue wasn't available. In spite of the awkwardness, it was a pleasant and productive afternoon.

* * *

><p>Zuko woke to the pleasant realisation that morning, that he was about to spend a fair bit of time that day with people who had been so far treating him as an equal, not inferior. He arrived at the courtyard to see the warriors drilling with spears that they used partly as a quarterstaff and partly as a bladed weapon.<p>

He slipped out of sight to warm up, not wanting to distract them or be distracted himself. In a small corner of the courtyard he stretched, then moved into the opening of a simple kata. Left, right, crouch, kick, swing, drop . . . every move was ingrained in his muscles. It was like a dance now, every move automatically following the other, pure reflex and habit. He'd been able to cut down his morning meditations because of this. There was nothing but his breath and the repetitive motions of the drill.

It was in his transition to a new form that the distraction happened. The do blades swung around and slammed into the staff in their path. Reflexively Zuko pulled back into a defensive stance and found himself faced with a grinning Chief Hakoda, who whirled about, sending his weapon hurtling toward Zuko. Zuko blocked again, felt a grin stretch along his lips, and the fight was on.

Soon the warriors had formed a circle of cheering men around Zuko and Hakoda, each clever move or impressive assault answered with a brief rise in the volume. More, Zuko became aware that Bato, the man he had briefly faced the day before, was cheering for him, against his leader. Faster they went, his swords and Hakoda's staff blurring with speed. With a duck and a turn, Zuko slipped under Hakoda's guard and brought his right sword up to rest the point at Hakoda's throat, only to find that the staff had paused at the back of his neck. Without perfect control it would have slammed into his neck, breaking it and killing him.

It was a draw.

The men erupted in cheering, and Hakoda stepped back. "I'm glad I never faced you in the field, your highness," he said. "If you had used your bending in tandem with that swordwork, you would have been unstoppable."

For a flash of a moment, Zuko recalled all the sneers he'd gotten from suggesting just that from his family and teachers, the beliefs of the Fire Nation that benders should never lower themselves to physical weapons. But these people thought that was a clever idea, thought it would have been a good thing. So he shoved his feelings of inadequacy down and basked in the moment. "That spinning thrust you did," he asked, "What was that exactly? I could barely get around it."

"First you have to show me and the men that double-strike technique you nearly took my head off with," Hakoda countered. "I think it could be adapted to a club and knife pairing."

It was an amazing morning, Zuko found. The club and knife combination Hakoda suggested did work to be adapted to a lot of Zuko's style, and the challenge of the Water style's fluidity was just so novel that he grinned his way to lunch and happily ignored Azula so completely that she cracked and called him an incompetent waste of space within their mother's earshot, getting her a scolding. Even though he got scolded for ignoring her, it was still a sugar glaze on top of a day ending with Princess Yue and Katara.

As a favour for them both, he slipped quietly out of the palace that evening, weighted down with money for bribes, and slipped away to the outskirts of the city. She was there, as he'd expected, because her family had demanded she at least make a showing. "Good evening, Ty Lee."

"Zuko?" she said gleefully. Suddenly he had the pink-clad acrobat wrapped around him. "What are you doing here?" Her smiled fell away as she asked, "This isn't about Azula, is it?"

"No," he said firmly. "I don't want Azula to know about this at all. I wanted a favour from you, actually."

Ty Lee sighed, her usually chipper personality weighted down. "I miss her, but the her I miss wasn't the her she really was, was she?"

Zuko shook his head. Ty Lee had been horribly hurt by Azula when his sister had tried to pull off a coup d'etat. One that his mother kept insisted was a cry for help. "I don't think she ever was. She never was to me, at least," he told her. Then he shook his head. "I wanted to ask you if you'd be willing to teach someone chi blocking. At least enough to get by."

She frowned, pretzeled herself in that way that was only comfortable to Ty Lee, and asked, "Who?"

"The Water Tribe princess Lu Ten is engaged to," Zuko explained. "They don't teach the women of the Water Tribes anything about fighting at all, and I have a bad feeling about her not being trained. But if you give her some training in something, it'll be better for her."

She seemed to be thinking about it. "Is she nice?"

"So far," Zuko said. "But that's part of why I'm asking you. You're nice, so you'll probably get along with each other okay."

"You think I'm nice," Ty Lee said, cheering up immensely. "After everything with Azula being my friend and so horrible to you all the time-"

"You were never horrible to me," Zuko interrupted. "I should have been nicer to you." He should have. Talking to Ty Lee reminded him that the girl didn't have a mean bone in her body, and had been a friend to everyone who let her. "I brought you some money," he said, holding out the purse. "To make up for anything you lose from not being able to perform with your circus while you're here and helping Princess Yue."

She took the purse, looked inside, and then said, "I'll do it." Then her usual brilliant smile was on her lips again. "It's good to see you again, Zuko. Should I come in through the back way?"

"Actually," he told her, "There's an unused wing to the Academy right now. I was figuring we could all meet there and you'd be able to help Yue quietly and no one would have to worry about running into Azula."

"Tomorrow afternoon?" she asked.

"Sounds good," Zuko told her. They stood, facing each other awkwardly for a moment or two, then Ty Lee bolted forward, hugged him, and scampered off, waving and shouting goodbye.

He turned and left, wondering how many friends he had that he hadn't known about or didn't remember.


	6. Reveal

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: Short, but I didn't want to go beyond the things I have in this section, so this is what you get. Hope you guys enjoy it!

* * *

><p>Things continued in a sort of routine for the next month. In the mornings Zuko would train with Hakoda and his men, or he'd pass the time with Katara, who moved from being a comfortable acquaintance to a good friend faster than either of them could have believed. Yue spent her mornings with Lu Ten, getting to know her future husband better and her afternoons either wandering the city with Zuko and Katara, or training with Ty Lee.<p>

Katara rapidly came to feel that Zuko was an important part of her life, and they often wandered in the markets, telling each other stories about growing up in their respective homes, accidents that happened in bending training and bemoaning the siblings they had to suffer while Yue took lessons from Ty Lee. It was nice in other ways, because they had all agreed to keep a low profile. Zuko hated the pity he got for his scar and being his father's son, Yue and Katara didn't want to be caught and harassed for their 'lowly' Water Tribe origins.

In the evenings, Yue would pass along everything she'd learned from Ty Lee, and Katara found herself adapting the chi blocking into her bending. The pressure points and what they did fit into both her healing and the bloodbending she had learned from Hama. It was just an extension of those, and the acrobatic grace required was a fun modification to her usual style of close fighting that she'd learned just in case she couldn't bend her way out of a fight. While she had no one to practice on but Yue, her friend had no one to practice with and on but her, so they took turns being victim.

It was late afternoon when it happened. Katara, Yue and Zuko were returning to the palace dressed, as always, in commoners' clothes. They suddenly found themselves faced with a gang of raggedly dressed men. "Look what we have here, boys," said the one apparently in charge. "A rich pretty boy and his girlfriends."

Zuko had tensed beside Katara, and she saw his hands abortively move to the swords at his back. "No," she hissed at him, jerking her head at Yue. He immediately stopped, understanding her point. He could take care of himself in a fight like that, but Yue couldn't, and she wasn't supposed to be able to. He couldn't protect the pair of them _and_ fight off that many opponents.

She glanced at Yue, catching her eye, ignoring the leader as he postured, "So how about you hand over your purse, rich boy, and we'll be real nice to your girlfriends."

_Run_, she mouthed, and before anything else happened, she and Yue took to their heels. For a moment, Katara lost track of Zuko, then she spotted him, on the rooftops, where he had apparently leapt to when she and Yue started running. A moment or two later, he landed with incredible grace beside them, and they turned a corner, losing the men briefly.

In that moment, Katara came to a quick decisions and pushed Yue toward Zuko and took a sharp turn, deliberately getting the attention of their pursuers. As she'd expected, they missed the other two and chased after the sure thing.

She ran, heading toward a fountain down a back alley she knew was there. It was somewhere around here . . .

One turn and she was in the blind courtyard. Someone had built the place for privacy, and there was a fountain and a lot of bowers excellent for lovers to retreat to, but no windows and a lot of very high walls. She stopped, standing in front of the fountain, feeling the ebb and flow of her element and felt a vicious smile stretch across her lips.

"Well, you just made a mistake girlie," said the leader again. He and his friends deliberately moved to block the exit. "Not even your boyfriend's here to save you." The others laughed.

She just kept smiling, and said, "Who said I wanted him to save me?"

An ugly light came into his eyes. "Even better," he said, and strode towards her. As he reached for her, Katara's body shifted automatically. It was the first move her father had taught her when he'd discovered she was being put on the front lines of the Northern Tribe's defences. Catch his wrist, use the forward momentum, spin and twist, and he flew through the air to slam into the fountain behind her.

This one was no trained warrior. He took the fall in the worst way and a satisfying crack issued from behind her, accompanied by the sound of his scream. He was breathing, but he didn't seem to be moving. The others went wide-eyed. Maybe she could have talked her way out of it. Maybe she should have, but it had been too long since her last real fight, and Katara was itching to take some of her bad temper at Arnook out on someone. "That all you boys got?"

They ran at her. The first few moments, she didn't resort to a bit of her bending. There was something far more satisfying in the physical fight. But then two of the turned out to be firebenders, and Katara found herself thrown backwards, past the other victims of her annoyance at being treated as less than the other warriors of the tribe, and slammed into the wall herself.

But she'd taken far worse hits in the war for years. With a smile, that sent them wide-eyed and staggering back, she raised her hands overhead and called the water forth.

* * *

><p>Zuko had grabbed Yue's hand to hoist her to her feet when she stumbled, wondering why Katara had pushed her friend like that. He got his answer at once as the girl peeled off, clearly intending to lead the men chasing them away from her mistress. In that moment, his respect for her trebled. He couldn't imagine any of the servants, certainly not the maids he knew, who would have done something like that for the nobility they served.<p>

It was foolhardy, brave and perhaps the most honourable thing he had ever seen. "Can you find your way from here?" he asked as they continued to run. "I have to go back for Katara."

He was sickeningly appalled when Yue snorted in between panted breaths. "Don't worry about her."

They were on the main thoroughfare now, their pursuers gone and a simple walk to the palace. "Well, I'm sure you can find you own way now," Zuko sneered. He'd thought better of her. This was simply . . . disgusting. She was abandoning her maid to save her own skin and she didn't even care.

She had the gall to look first insulted, then amused, then she turned and walked away, saying, "You're right, I can. Thank you for your assistance."

He didn't bother to wait. He ducked into an alley, getting back to the rooftops, retracing their steps in the hopes of finding Katara before anything happened to her. A high-pitched scream from the direction she'd gone caught his attention, and he felt sick with fear for her as he raced along. A few thuds had him more confused and worried, wondering if someone had tried to help her and was injured now for protecting the pretty girl he had become friends with.

He was back on the ground now, following the sounds to a blind courtyard he'd shown Katara before. It had a fountain in it, and she seemed likely to have wanted to head to where she had something that might be a weapon. He'd seen her make ice before, so she could probably make some sort of makeshift weapon . . .

Then his thoughts trailed off and he stopped dead. Mentally, physically, emotionally, he had no idea what to do as Katara, in a graceful, fluid, yet aggressive bending stance, a whirlwind of glinting ice spikes, interspersed with lashes of water spinning around her, tearing through the gang that had been chasing them. There were two firebenders, desperately trying to defend themselves, but it was clear the only reason they were succeeding was that Katara was toying with them, a serene smile on her face.

Part of Zuko's brain restarted. _That is so hot_.

Unlike firebending, waterbending was sinuous and graceful, rather than sharp and staccato. Katara's hips twisted, and Zuko was thoroughly distracted by their movements.

Katara eased off and down, letting the men go. "Now, have we learned a lesson about chasing people?" she asked them.

The panting and pained group didn't bother answering, and just fled past Zuko and down the street. He watched them go and Katara turn to clean up her appearance, using the now-still water as a mirror. As the warrior woman he'd just been watching (drooling over, if he was honest with himself) turn back into mild-mannered Katara, Zuko suddenly understood Yue's statement. But more than that, several clues came together in his mind.

"You're the White Terror!" he said.

She spun around, and there was an utterly incongruous look of fear on her face. "You can't tell anyone!" she said urgently. "Zuko, please."

"Why are they making you pretend to be a maid?" Zuko demanded. "You're incredible-"

"I'm Yue's defence against assassins," she interrupted. "That's what I always did when I wasn't on the front lines."

Zuko stared. That wasn't all, even if it was part of things. But it explained a lot. And he'd always wanted to try his bending against another kind of bender. Maybe, since he was helping her and Yue with adapting to the Fire Nation, she'd help him become a better bender himself. So he offered, "If you want, I could help you find somewhere to practice at. And maybe you could . . ." he trailed off. He didn't want to sound desperate and needy, he didn't want Katara to think he was as pathetic as everyone else seemed to feel he was at bending.

She just grinned in that open way she had. The smile that clearly said she had nothing she was hiding as far as the topic at hand was concerned. "I'd love a sparring partner," she said. "And you certainly can't be worse than those two." Her head jerked in the direction the gang had run off.

"I'd hope I'd be better than those two," Zuko replied with a grin. He hadn't even had to abase himself.

They turned and began walking together back to the palace. She sighed. "I have to ask you not to tell anyone, though," she said. "It's not just because the whole point of not telling people is so that I can take someone by surprise if they think they can get to Yue."

All those little clues he'd seen over the weeks since the Water delegation arrived had said as much to Zuko. "Chief Arnook and the other Northern Tribesmen don't like women fighters, do they?"

Katara nodded, looking suddenly tired and sad. "It was only because my grandmother was the love of Master Pakku's life that I got to train with him. She . . . manipulated him," Katara said with a shudder of mild revulsion. "I just wish she hadn't done it where Sokka and I could hear."

Zuko thought about that and pictured his grandfather Azulon and . . . "Ew."

"Exactly," she said nodding. "Anyhow, so now that the war's over, they don't know what to do with me. Once Yue is safely married, I'll probably go home to the South Pole."

He didn't know what to say to that, so Zuko turned the conversation to bending, and discovered Katara had a whole store of stories about training mishaps that were positively hilarious. They lasted all the way back to the palace, where she changed the topic to her brother's training mishaps, which were hysterical. When they reached the rooms she shared with Yue, they both stopped by the doors, and Zuko found himself awkwardly standing there, unsure of what to say.

"Good evening Your Highness," she said, the full formal bow shaking him back to remembrance of their respective ranks. Then a mischievous grin crossed her lips and she kissed him on the cheek before vanishing inside the door.

A snort from one of the two Water Tribe guards brought his attention to his surroundings, and Zuko raised an eyebrow at the man. A throat clearing from one of the Fire Nation guards on the other side of the door made him look between the two sets of guards.

"Why you keep telling that girl she's ugly, I don't know," snapped one of the Fire guards.

The Tribesman sneered. "You're as bad as the Southern Tribesmen, always claiming she's not manly. They're her family, what's your excuse?"

Yue's head came out. "If I hear this argument one more time," she said, "I'm going to replace you all."

The guards shut up, and Zuko left, wondering how anyone could call a girl with curves like Katara's, manly.


	7. Battles to Fight

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: Yes, yes, I know. Why am I slashing Primeval when I should be doing this? Let's just say that Stephen and Connor are very pretty and let it go at that, okay?

* * *

><p>With Zuko's discovery of Katara's real role in things, there was a sudden change in how they spent their time. Zuko and Katara would accompany Yue to her lessons with Ty Lee, and then they'd head down to a private little cove on the beach, where they'd spar with each other.<p>

Zuko, Katara learned, was an excellent bender, more than the equal of a great many of the firebenders she'd fought in the war. He was a solid fighter, quick on his feet, always thinking, but he also tried too hard. It was as though he couldn't let go enough to let his muscle memory and instincts carry him, so convinced he was that he didn't have any. When he sparred with her with his swords alone, he was incredible, and Katara was left wondering what it was that had convinced him to listen to his instincts with weapons, but not with his bending.

When he sparred with fire, every move he made he thought through. It was as though he were trying to play pai sho as he fought. Come up with the 'right' block for every move she made, deliberately looking through his mental library of moves to find counterattacks.

He lost every fight.

It took a week before Katara sat him down and declared, "You need to let your instincts work for you for a change."

He frowned at her, clearly confused. "What do you mean?"

Katara sighed, then closed her eyes in concentration. She had to explain this right. "Okay, I need you to think about your swords. How you fight with them."

His voice was confused. "What do you mean?" he repeated.

"When you're sparring with them, you don't think do you?" she asked. "I mean, about the moves."

"Of course I'm thinking," he said, suddenly irritated. "You have to think and decide on tactics in a fight."

"Yes," Katara said slowly. "But when someone aims a thrust at you, you just block it. You don't run through in your head every single possible means of not getting stabbed and then pick the right one and _then_ block it." She shook her head in irritation. "I'm sorry, I'm not explaining this well. You do drills to learn how to do the moves until it's all second nature, right?"

His face cleared. "Right. The way that I can do my katas without thinking about what comes next because I've learned it so much I don't have to think about it at all."

Relieved that he was understanding her, she smiled at him. "Right. So, why aren't you letting those instincts work when you're bending?"

He stiffened. "Maybe it's because I'm just not good en-"

"Bull."

He stared at her. "You've been outclassing me constantly, I really don't see why you'd think I was better than that."

"You are, Zuko," she replied. "Or at least, you could be." Sighing, she shook her head. "I just don't know how to . . . how to get you to break that habit."

It was his turn to frown. "What habit?"

"Overthinking," she replied. Katara started pacing. She had to find a way to get him to relax and let the bending happen. He was more than competent, but he just couldn't seem to relax and let his reflexes lead. It wasn't that there wasn't a portion of fighting that was about thinking and tactics, but he spent so much time thinking, he kept missing the actual fight.

Suddenly, Katara remembered something old Hama had done with her. It was right before she'd found herself on the front lines. She'd been terrified she wouldn't be able to kill when she truly needed to. The old woman had taken her far away from the city walls, out into the tundra, somewhere they wouldn't be interrupted. She'd told Katara to prepare herself, and then had attacked. It hadn't been sparring, it hadn't been a lesson, it had been straightforward, and every blow had been one with the potential to kill.

At first Katara had been confused and then frightened, but she'd blocked and blocked, and finally went on the offensive to stop the old woman from killing her. In desperation, she'd found her conscious thought had deserted her for a heightened sense of her surroundings and the movements of her opponent. Working without that awareness of every move and how it connected or didn't connect and what was the 'right' or 'wrong' response, the tide of battle turned and Katara had won that fight. She'd barely held back the final blow that nearly killed Hama in the end.

She slowly turned to Zuko. "I can break you of it," she told him. "I can break you of all this overthinking, but you won't like it, and I'm pretty sure you might hate me by the time I'm done."

He looked worried at that, but then stiffened. "I'll do anything if you think it might help," he told her with a sort of resigned look on his face she couldn't quite interpret.

Katara stood. "Okay then," she told him, taking a deep breath to prepare for what she was going to do. "Get yourself ready. We don't stop until you take me down or I tell you to."

Zuko stood, settled himself in the now-familar ready stance he preferred. It was a stance she'd also learned presaged some complicated bending moves. Her own stance was the most basic ready form of the waterbending discipline, because without knowing what your opponent's first move would be, it was better to be able to move in any direction.

"Begin," she said.

As he always did, Zuko tried to take the offensive and aimed an overly complicated twist of fire at her. She batted it aside, and deliberately set herself to only simple moves. She let him have the full run of the beach between them and offered him a slowly moving target.

That was all she did to take it easy on him.

Lashings of water skirled between them, forcing him onto the defensive in no time. His defenses became more and more reactive, his offensive movement becoming rarer and rarer. The pattern was the same, although it was taking him longer to get there while she didn't attack him with the full strength of her skill. They hit that wall where she normally stopped and backed down. The place where she'd basically beaten him down and it was clear that she should win now. She could see in his eyes he was waiting for the end of the bout.

Like Hama had done with her, Katara kept going. She pushed and pushed. Hit him again and again. He was barely blocking now, each movement coming as pure reflex, another desperate motion just to keep himself alive one second longer.

Then suddenly, she realised she'd left an opening. He did too, and without any of his usual flairs or displays, without trying to do the 'right' move, he sent a simple flame fist right through the hole in her defense, sending her flying back. He staggered into something more controlled as she landed on her back and followed up with a set of palm strikes.

But the small space afforded by his small victory meant that he was trying to land the 'right' blows again, and this time she landed him against a tree, frozen there and incapacitated.

"Enough." She told him. She walked over and twisted her wrist, undoing the ice shackles. "You almost got it for a moment there," Katara informed the prince.

"I lost, again," Zuko told her bitterly.

She shook her head. "Get up," she told him. If she was going to wear him down, force him to just react, she couldn't be sympathetic, couldn't explain things and couldn't let him rest. With a kind of cruelty she didn't know she had, she just looked at him, evenly and coldly and said again to his baffled face, "Get. Up."

This time, when he stood, she just waited until he was on his feet before launching herself at him again. This time he didn't try to block, ducking out of the way as he would have sword strikes. The fight was shorter, Zuko letting her box him into a corner as he played an almost purely defensive game. She flattened him again.

Another several second breather and another order to stand and fight.

The third time was even shorter.

Katara let him rest a little longer, but the fourth time she saw something that nearly made her smile, would have if she hadn't been trying to keep herself neutral-seeming as she did this. In his eyes was a spark of anger. In this case, anger was good. She launched herself at him again.

Never let it be said he was a weak bender. As his temper got the better of him, the fury seemed to burn away his tiredness, and Zuko started taking his chances, just taking shots whenever he could. Instead of waiting for the 'proper' point to do things, he just did them. The follow-through was awkward and he wasn't even forcing her to block most of the time because of his misses, but she could see he was getting there.

She closed in again, forcing him to take strike after strike, not letting up. Inside, she couldn't stop herself from thinking, _Come on, Zuko. You can do this. Just let go._

And then he did.

He was angry, and it showed. In the kind of act that only someone in a real fight would use, an unfocussed flare of pure heat exploded outward from him, shoving her away enough for him to roll to his feet and try to take the offensive. What she'd been doing was unfair, she knew. It wasn't nice or right to prod at someone you were so much better than, and drag it all out. But as his unthinking fury took hold, he stopped trying so hard and just let himself bend. With that, all the awkwardness smoothed out as years of drills and training came to the fore, letting him move from strike to offensive block to attack to defence without pausing or struggle.

Katara felt her face break into a grin as she finally had to start resorting to harder and harder techniques, more complicated things and had to finally start thinking tactically rather than merely reactively. The speed of exchange sped up as his reactions sped up. She'd missed this, despite herself. She'd missed matching someone in the field of battle and the sheer joy of the fight.

In the end, he wasn't up to her calibre and she won. But he managed a final blow that, had they been truly fighting, could have turned his defeat into a sort of Pyrrhic victory. Everything went black as her head hit the hard ground.

She woke with a groan, the sun having barely moved in the sky, to hear Zuko anxiously calling her name. "I'm okay," she told him, finding herself with her head resting in his lap. She slowly sat up.

"Easy," he said. "That was a pretty stiff blow to the head you took." His hands nonetheless supported her as she got herself together.

Then she remembered the outcome of the last fight. "That was exactly what I'm talking about," she told him with a grin. "Do you see what I mean now about not thinking?"

He stared. "I thought I'd killed you!" exclaimed Zuko. "I nearly-"

"That's the risk you take when you fight," Katara told him gently. "I'm fine and no one would have blamed you." Zuko didn't look convinced, so she tried again. "Zuko, what happened was no different than any of the sparring I did when we were still at war and a lot less dangerous than when I was on the front lines." She smiled. "I mean, you _weren't_ trying to kill me." Then she changed the subject back to the point of the whole thing. "The reason you were able to get me, Zuko," she said. "You still haven't answered my question. Do you see what I mean about not thinking?"

As Katara watched, he brought himself to refocus. He thought about what she was saying and Katara saw the moment he truly made the connection in his own mind. "I think so," he said slowly.

"Good," she said. "Now, give me a minute to deal with my head, and then we have to head back to pick Yue up."

As she headed down the beach to the water, he demanded from behind her, "You were still going easy on me, weren't you? And I lost."

"We tied," Katara said firmly.

Zuko thought about arguing, but backed down. For one thing, with Katara pushing him the way she had, he'd performed better than he ever had before with his bending. And those moments when he'd lost control of himself had been . . . incredible. He'd felt like he was flying and nothing could go wrong. It was just like when he was sparring with his blades and everything went away but the sheer joy of the movement and the clash of weapons.

Because she'd given him that, and because he _had_ done better than ever before he chose not to argue as they made their way to collect Yue from where she was taking lessons in chi blocking from Ty Lee.

Ty Lee met them at the door, cheerful and enthusiastically complimentary of Yue's new abilities. "She's not quite bouncy enough yet to dodge," she was saying, "But her accuracy's really great and everything." Then she offered to walk part of the way back to the palace with them. While Katara and Yue walked together in front, Ty Lee slowed down enough to force Zuko and her back quite a few paces. The look on her face was serious enough that Zuko immediately matched his pace to hers, wondering what it was that she needed to talk about. "I was talking to Yue today," the acrobat began. "She said a few things about Katara."

"Like what?" he asked, concerned.

Lips pursed a little in thought, Ty Lee said abruptly. "How would you describe her? Katara, that is."

"Describe her how?" he asked cautiously. He'd grown up at court, he was used to oblique approaches to topics, and if there was one thing he knew, it was never answer a question without clarifying what that question was actually asking.

"Physically," Ty Lee replied. "If you were describing her for someone to make a painting, what would you say?"

The word escaped him before he could censor himself. "Curvy." It wasn't a lie, she was quite curvy. She curved at the top and the bottom and in ways he'd never seen on a girl from the Fire Nation and it was quite . . . distracting. If he let himself think about it.

Nodding, she said, "That's my first thought too." There was a pause, then Zuko really heard that sentence and his head whipped around to stare at her. Ty Lee giggled. "You didn't really think Azula just kept me around for the chi bending, did you?" Her face crumpled. "It was part of why I was so sure she couldn't be that awful," she confessed. "I didn't think I could be in love with someone like . . ." She took in a shaking breath.

Zuko wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I know. I used to think that _my sister_ couldn't possibly be _that awful_."

They leaned into each other for a moment, feeling the comfort of just knowing there was someone else who knew how it felt to be in that place of loving someone who turned out to be nothing of what they'd hoped. Then Ty Lee shook it off. "Anyhow," she said. "About Katara."

"Right."

Her face was still serious. "Yue says that the Northern Tribesmen are so intimidated by her, or so angry that she's a better bender than they are, or . . . something like that. I think it's all bound up in that thing where they think women shouldn't fight because it's morally bad or . . . whatever it is." Ty Lee shook her head in disbelief.

Memories of the standoffs between the guards on Yue's rooms came to his mind. "Is this about the Water Tribe guards saying that Katara is 'manly', of all things?" Zuko asked.

Ty Lee's eyes went wide. "They what?" She shook her head. "I mean, they're just saying that, in front of everyone?"

Zuko shook his head. "Every time I walk Katara and Yue back, they're fighting with the Fire Nation guards on the other side of the door about whether or not Katara's . . . attractive."

Eyes narrowed, Ty Lee grumbled. "I should show them 'attractive'." Then she looked up at Zuko. "Yue wanted to know if I had any ideas about how to get Katara to believe that they're stupidheads, instead of her thinking they're right." Then she gave him a look that passed for crafty on her open, friendly face. "You could tell her she's pretty a lot."

He stared. "Are you matchmaking?"

"Well, you'd be very cute together," Ty Lee pointed out. "And then there's all that cliché stuff about opposites attracting and fire and water and sun and moon and -"

"Competence and incompetence," Zuko grumbled. "Pretty versus ugly scarring."

"_I_ think you're pretty," Ty Lee said. "You really take after Lady Ursa and Prince Ozai in all the right ways."

Neither had noticed Katara and Yue slowing down to come even with them. "Really, the scar doesn't even particularly detract from your looks," Yue pointed out. "You might even be overly feminine if it weren't for that."

"It does make you a little . . . rugged-looking," Katara said, flushing as she spoke.

"Rugged?" Zuko asked, not entirely certain what to think of that. After all, the royal family were supposed to be the epitome of smooth urbanity and sophistication. 'Rugged' didn't quite meet that expectation. Still, it was an attractive notion to him, that his scar wasn't disfiguring but rugged. He shook off the thought. That was ridiculous, and if he were to start thinking it all that would happen was Azula would pop that particular happy bubble of his. "Given the cultural differences between Water and Fire, that may just be your opinion," Zuko temporised.

The three young women looked at each other, shrugged, and then said their farewells as Ty Lee headed back out, not wanting to risk coming to Azula's attention.

At the door to the suite where Yue and Katara stayed, the same tired argument was going on. As Katara walked by, the wolf-bat whistle from the Fire guards made her smile, while the rolled eyes and gagging from the Water tribesmen made her wince. She looked tremendously pained, and Zuko couldn't stop himself as he said, "Katara, I know that you're as much her Highness' friend as you are her ladies' maid. Perhaps you might do me the honour of joining me at the ball tomorrow in order to give her a familiar face outside that of my family and Chief Arnook." He gathered up every lesson in courtly behaviour he had ever had, and said, "I'll arrange for the royal tailor to come and give you suitable clothing for such an event. Something to accent your beauty appropriately."

He sounded like the worst sort of romantic play put on by the Ember Island Players and was exactly the sort of dreadful sap that his mother swooned over in the name of romance. He gave her a graceful bow and just hoped she thought it wasn't stupid.

Anyhow, having her as his escort would mean he wouldn't have to put up with the girls wanting an in to the royal family, and there'd be someone there _not_ out to get him that he could hang around all evening. So it wasn't like asking the pretty girl to be his date didn't have a lot of benefits for himself.

That was it, he told himself. He was just being nice to her and pragmatic at the same time.


	8. Fancy Footwork

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: And . . . update. Are you shocked? I know I am. Thanks to you all for sticking this out.

* * *

><p>Katara really wasn't quite sure how she'd wound up waiting to be escorted to the ball along with Yue. Well, she could certainly remember all the events leading up to the moment she was in right then, but somehow, looking back, it felt like there was some sort of lapse of logic that prevented her from understanding how each of those moments had strung together to get her to that point.<p>

It started when Yue had informed her that it was sort of romantic that Zuko was asking her to the ball, and Katara had chosen, quite definitively, to take him at his word. That is, he was being kind in offering Yue a person she knew to be a friend to be there so there would be a friendly face for her. She also suspected that Zuko might have also had the ulterior motive of a friendly face for himself. She was absolutely willing to do a favour to a friend, but that had nothing to do with romance.

Even if the way he'd half ordered her had been both infuriating, because he'd basically just decided for her, it made her smile, because having a prince tell you you're beautiful is sort of fantastic, even if he's just saying it as part and parcel of courtly manners.

The next day they'd gone nowhere for any sort of training because the palace dressmaker showed up in Yue's rooms and took dozens of measurements of Katara, turning out a dress in a brilliant, deep blue that clung to her and took the figure that was positively flat by comparison with many of the other girls in the Water Tribes, overly muscled in all the wrong places and somehow turned those attributes into positives. With the general lightness of the clothing of the Fire Nation, she'd had to leave off her normal underwraps in exchange for Fire Nation underclothes, but the whole situation was so different from anything she was used to, Katara agreed to allow the servants of the palace to dress her fully in Fire Nation finery.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Katara felt pretty for the first time in a long time. The cut and design of the dress was even perfect for bending in, allowing her free movement of her arms and legs with just enough looseness to let her body bend wherever she needed it to. Once the dressmaker and her assistants, the servants and maids had all left, she gave in to the desire to see if she really could bend in the dress.

A quick bend and flex, and she had the water spinning through the air, flashing and freezing, melting and moving sinuously around her.

Arnook burst in without bothering to knock and fixed a glare on Katara. "What are you doing, you foolish girl?" he snapped. "Isn't it bad enough that we were forced to put a _girl_ on the front lines, you're now humiliating the Tribes further by demonstrating just how masculine you can be?"

With that, her good mood shattered and she flicked the water back into its sources. "I'm sorry," she murmured. She folded her hands together demurely, upset with herself. She'd let herself forget that she was supposed to not only be keeping her bending a secret, but badly it was viewed in the tribes that she was doing a man's bending.

"Father," Yue said reprovingly. It was the closest she would ever come to arguing with _her_ father. While Katara and her dad would have rip-roaring fights that shook the walls of the ice palace of the North, Yue would just be vaguely reproachful. Still, any support was better than none, and Katara pressed her lips together, recalling again that Zuko had been more appalled by Yue's lack of bending or martial skill than he'd been that Katara was responsible for the deaths of his own countrymen.

They stepped into the hall, and waiting there were both Prince Lu Ten and Zuko. No one would have heard what had been said behind the closed door, but Katara saw the sneer on the face of the Water guard as she passed, and heard the hiss, "She-male," as she followed Yue to the princes.

Arnook, as always, ignored the sniping, having long taken the stance that it was something Katara had earned from her behaviour, but both Zuko and Prince Lu Ten had heard, and it was with eerie similarity that the pair turned to look at the man with expressionlessly forbidding faces. Two pairs of golden eyes fixed on the guard, and for a moment the torches up and down the hall flickered in unison.

The Northern chief looked bemused at the display. Then even more baffled as Zuko stepped forward. "Lady Katara," he said. "You look stunning this evening." The bow he gave her made her eyes widen, because it was not the perfunctorily polite inclination of the head done by a royal to an upper servant, but that from a prince to a noblewoman of the court. Katara caught sight of Prince Lu Ten frowning oddly at Zuko, and Yue's suppressed smile in the corner of her eye, but didn't see much more as Zuko turned her away from the Water Tribe guard and walked her past the Fire Soldier on the other side of the door. The soft wolfbat-whistle made her flush and send a smile at the man, even as Zuko glared, no doubt feeling upset over the disrespect.

"Stop it," she muttered to him. "I know it's disrespectful-"

"It's hideously disrespectful," he told her, "And you shouldn't encourage them in crass behaviour."

"I like it when people tell me I'm pretty," she admitted. "It doesn't happen so often I won't take the compliment where I can get it. Anyhow, I think it's just on some sort of competitive principle by this point."

"That's not the point either," he told her. "The point is, they can't go around harassing women with unwanted advances. Anyhow, I'd hate to encourage behaviour that might give Azula the chance to-"

"Is there a problem, brother Zuzu dear?" crooned a voice practically in Katara's ear. It was only Zuko's suddenly hot hand on her arm that kept her from reacting with her reflexes borne of the front lines of the war. There was aggression and distaste in those words, and everything she'd heard tell from Ty Lee and Zuko made Katara all the more tense.

They stopped and turned, facing Azula, who was dressed nearly identically to Katara, but in red and black with the royal dragons embroidered into her dress, spiralling around the princess. Despite the warnings she'd had from everyone, Katara began sliding into a defensive posture, her fingers beginning to claw as she braced herself to take the only weapon she had in this dry place, the princess' blood, in hand.

"Why should there be a problem?" Zuko asked his sister. His head lowered and a nasty smile slipped onto his lips. "After all, I'm not the one who left Mother a crying mess this afternoon."

The mad grin on the princess' face slipped. "I? Why I don't know what you mean."

"Losing control of your flame, Azula?" The look on Zuko's face blazed, and for a moment Katara was reminded of the rumours about the Fire Lord's younger brother, a man known to be handsome, but with a twisted and blackened piece of charcoal for a heart. "Why, I'd think a _prodigy_ like yourself would do better than to damage Mother's precious turtle ducks."

Her highness' eyes twitched, which was all the warning they had. Suddenly a blast of blue flame came pouring from her hands as she aimed her fury at her brother. They dove out of the way, and Katara, on seeing those flames perilously close to Yue, reacted.

Katara's hands came up, forming claws as she'd learned from Hama, and the princess froze, her flames choked off. Smiling grimly, the waterbender twisted her fingers, making Azula straighten from her bending posture. "What . . . how?" the Fire princess sputtered.

"Never piss off a healer," Katara told her. "We know how everything works inside you and I, for one, won't hesitate to use it." With a sense of triumph, she added, "And I expect you to apologise to my lady, Princess Yue. She's unused to such violent displays and I have the feeling that she could have been hurt by your attack on Prince Zuko."

With an added flick of the wrist that simultaneously released her and sent her sprawling, Katara stared Azula down, waiting for either an apology or another attack. The princess pulled herself cautiously to her feet, eyeing Katara warily, then turned to Yue. "I . . . apologise," she said slowly, with a careful bow. "I will be more careful in future."

The eyes she turned on Katara were blank and snakelike in their expressionless evaluation. Internally, Katara shuddered, realising that her actions had just made her an enemy. Her dad had always said her impulsiveness would get her in trouble.

Yue was gracious. "Of course, I understand you were . . . under duress," she said carefully.

By now, everyone in the hall, Zuko, Prince Lu Ten, Arnook and the Fire guards stationed at points all down the corridor, they were all staring at her. The two princes were wide-eyed, while Arnook and the guards had something that resembled fear on their faces. Yue was the only one unaffected as Azula turned sharply, striding down the corridor. She smiled kindly and turned to Lu Ten. "Lu Ten, would you be so kind as to show us the way? I do understand that the evening is not to be held in the same hall as the last event."

Prince Lu Ten shook himself and turned a curious and examining eye on Katara before saying, "Of course, princess."

Zuko similarly pulled himself together, holding out his arm for her. As they passed Arnook, he began to collect himself to bluster more. She just glared, half lifted a hand, and enjoyed the petty satisfaction of seeing him scared.

As they walked into the grand hall where the ball was to take place, Katara was grateful that she was wearing the dress Zuko had insisted upon. While the blue stood out in the sea of red and black like blood on the arctic snow, it was elegant and beautiful, and the leers of the men around her, making Zuko tighten his arm on her defensively and glare, told her that she looked good.

* * *

><p>When Zuko arrived to collect Katara, Lu Ten was already waiting outside the door. "Zuko? What are you doing here?" he asked in surprise.<p>

"I decided to invite Yue's companion Katara along," Zuko replied, waiting for the disapproving response. Lu Ten didn't disappoint.

"You invited a maid? Zuko, what-"

He interrupted before the disapproving rant could gain ground. "She's not a maid, Lu Ten. She's more a lady-in-waiting than anything else, trust me. It's just that there's some sort of trouble between her and Chief Arnook, the man resents her."

Lu Ten raised an eyebrow. "And you think upsetting the man is an improvement?"

Before Zuko had to answer that, Yue, Arnook and Katara all stepped out of the women's rooms. As they passed by, the Water Tribesman at the door hissed maliciously, "She-male," at Katara.

The sheer nerve of such an act, to insult a lady's maid, or as Zuko was contending to Lu Ten, lady-in-waiting, was incredible. Doubly incredible was that Arnook seemed to think it was entirely appropriate for the man to insult his greatest warrior that way. Beside him, he could feel Lu Ten's similar flare of temper that anyone would be so crass, especially to an attractive and personable young woman like Katara.

With both their tempers in upset, the torches up and down the hall reacted, the flames leaping briefly upward before settling back down again as they got themselves under control. Chief Arnook looked confused, as though he had no notion of what had happened that was angering them. From what Zuko knew of the man, he probably didn't.

Instead of letting anyone dwell on things, he greeted Katara, offering her a bow for the rank he was sure she must hold by equivalency in the Water Tribes, and holding out an arm to walk her to the ball. She flushed prettily, and smiled graciously at the soldier who demeaned himself by whistling at her, as though she were a common dancer, or worse yet, prostitute. That was when he truly understood what Ty Lee and Yue had been trying to tell him. Katara was so certain of her plainness, she was flattered at getting any attention at all that was positive about her femininity.

He was trying to explain to her that it was ridiculous and demeaning and she was better than that, when Azula chose to show up. As they both spun around to face her, Zuko felt Katara shifting into some sort of bending stance, and remembering that she was supposed to be a secret, he moved to keep his sister's attention off Katara and on himself. "Why should there be a problem?" he asked her, letting loose with all the satisfaction he felt those rare times he was able to have something over her. "After all, I'm not the one who left Mother a crying mess this afternoon."

It felt so _good_ to see her blanch a little, to see the shock on her face. He felt a smile on his lips that he knew was nasty and wicked and he couldn't care. "I? Why I don't know what you mean."

Bluff. He wasn't going to play this game for too long. "Losing control of your flame, Azula?" he asked pointedly. "Why, I'd think a _prodigy_ like yourself would do better than to damage Mother's precious turtle ducks."

He knew as she lost it that he'd pushed her too far. He was just so sick of having to tread carefully around her. She poured flame out towards him, threatening everyone with potential immolation. And then it stopped. Katara, her hands in an oddly clawed form _was bending Azula_.

How, he didn`t know. What he did know, was that it was the most terrifying thing he`d ever seen. He knew a bender could do all kinds of deadly things, but this . . . This was just frightening the sort of power Katara held. The look on her face was deadly, and Zuko truly saw the woman behind the title of White Terror. It was a wonder they'd ever thought they could win if this was what the Tribes had brought into the war in their defense.

Azula, if you knew her, was terrified. Zuko struggled to keep his face impassive, even as he noted Lu Ten gaping like a fish beside him. So was Arnook, actually, but from what Zuko had heard, the man must have had a short memory to be allowing people to antagonise someone like Katara. Finally, Azula choked out the words, "What . . . how?"

Katara's smile was even more frightening. "Never piss off a healer," she said. "We know how everything works inside you and I, for one, won't hesitate to use it." That was when he remembered her ability to heal. This was as a consequence of her healing? Trust Katara to turn healing to a weapon in her hand as needed. But also, he could have a little more sympathy for Arnook, if this was a technique normally centred on healing. "And I expect you to apologise to my lady, Princess Yue. She's unused to such violent displays and I have the feeling that she could have been hurt by your attack on Prince Zuko."

Out of the corner of his eye, Zuko caught sight of Yue, who seemed to be the only one there who was calm about things. Then Katara flicked her wrists, sending Azula sprawling to the floor, but finally free, and demanded an apology to Yue.

Azula and Lu Ten's eyes were calculating as he led Katara away and to the hall. He led Katara through the people thronging the hall, glaring down the men who leered at the bender on his arm, and telling her, "That may not have been the smartest thing you ever did, challenging Azula."

She sighed. "I know. I was just angry. She was taunting you, Arnook had just given me another lecture about being a proper womanly bender. I just lost my temper."

"What did you do, anyhow?" he asked. "I've never heard of anything like that before."

They settled to the cushions at the high table as Katara answered. "Do you know how much water there is in the human body? A lot. It's what lets us heal people."

His mother looked at them both, eyes narrowed, as Katara began taking one of everything that passed by her. "Katara, was it?" she said slowly.

Zuko took a deep breath and prepared to lock horns with his mother. He was halted by Yue, who said, "Katara is only my maid because of the matter of appearances. Her rank, inasmuch as we of the Water Tribes think about such things, is far closer to what you might consider a noblewoman of the court."

Before his mother could delve further, Zuko added hastily, "I think we might treat her more as a lady-in-waiting than a true maid," he explained. "As Princess Yue and Lady Katara had grown up together, I thought the princess might appreciate having a familiar face at this event."

Lady Ursa looked quite taken aback, then even more so as Yue and Katara began to relate a story of some public humiliation Katara's brother had caused himself at a public function. He couldn't keep himself from laughing lightly, even as his mother looked sternly disapproving at the childish behaviour of the pair and Lu Ten looked like his dignity was being wantonly destroyed by merely hearing the story.

When Azula arrived, she didn't say a word about the fight, just watched Katara closely. Her eyes looked speculative, and Zuko promised himself to watch the waterbender's back. While it was clear that Katara was well aware of the enemy she'd made, and was even watching Azula back, she couldn't know the lengths Azula would go to for a victory. He finally had found people he could be certain to call friends and he wasn't going to let Azula take that away from him.

When the dancing started, he turned to Katara. "Do you dance?"

"She does," Yue answered for her. "In fact, she _loves_ to dance."

Katara laughed. "Anyone who says you and Sokka were complete opposites has no idea," she said, and stood. "Let's go before she makes Lu Ten dance with me just so she can make you cut in."

They headed out to the floor, and it wasn't until the stood beside each other amidst the crowd of dancers that he realised her fingers were twined with his the whole way from the table to the floor. He didn't have time to contemplate that, however. Katara danced like she bended. With everything in her and with the consummate physical grace of someone who knew what every part of her body was doing at every given moment.

Distracted as he was by how incredible she was at this on top of her warrior's skills, he didn't even notice how well he'd been doing until Yue and Lu Ten swept by, his cousin saying, "You're looking surprisingly good tonight, Zuko!" The grin and laughter, well-meant though they were, cut like a knife as he was reminded of his position as the untalented and uninteresting child of the Royal Family. With that he stumbled, tripped, stepped on Katara's feet, and fled the floor in furious humiliation.

Well, he would have, if Katara hadn't somehow started to lead from behind, forcing him into a turn, and saying, "Save being angry for Azula, who actually means bad things. "

As he cooled down, he realised that she was right, and tried to take things in the spirit they were meant, without concentrating on the cutting undertone that he should have been better before. Katara distracted him, kept his temper even for once, and before he knew it, it was hours later than he normally would have fled to the peace and quiet of his rooms, and his mother was beaming at him proudly, much to Azula's ire.

So, when Katara insisted on staying the whole evening, when she handed Zuko over to Yue so she could dance the energetic dances he'd never wanted to learn to do with Lu Ten, when she made him the bitter envy of everyone there with iced drinks and the most exotically beautiful girl in the hall, he let her lead. Because she'd given him the first royal ball without the usual aggravation, anger and disappointment he'd ever had.

And on their final turn around the floor, dancing together, her sparkling blue eyes caught his, and he admitted to himself that he might just be a little bit in love with her.


	9. Challenge Accepted

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: Oh my lord. Look at that, I haven't been kidnapped by roving nomadic hippie minstrels.

* * *

><p>More weeks passed, because the arrangement of a royal wedding took time, and now that Yue had been introduced to all the nobles, more of her time was being taken up in the learning of the duties of a princess and future Fire Lady.<p>

It just meant that Katara found herself spending more and more time with Zuko, sparring and pushing him to get better. It was taking her less and less time each meeting to get him to the point where he'd stop looking for the correct response in each situation, instead trusting himself to know when and where to block.

But he was also acting a little oddly. He was very nice, buying her jewelry that he thought would look good with her clothing, taking her out to places in and around the city, taking out one of the royal barges so that they could take an afternoon out together on the warm ocean, which was amazing. But she really didn't understand why.

She broached the topic with Yue, who just smiled in that mysterious way she was so good at and changed the subject. When she tried with Ty Lee, she just left more confused than she'd started, and only sure that she was never going to ask Ty Lee that kind of question again.

In exasperation, she finally asked Zuko directly as they warmed up to spar. "It's not that I don't like the presents and the trips and the dinners out and everything, but why are you doing all this stuff?" she asked. "I mean, I'm already your friend, you don't need to do anything to keep it that way."

"I'm not . . ." he stopped, then tried again. "I know you're my friend," he said slowly. "It's . . ." Then he shook his head. "Nevermind. You want to start?"

She frowned at him, but decided to let it go. Clearly this was some weird Zuko thing she wasn't going to get.

As they always did now, they set up across from each other on the beach, Zuko in his new, much simpler standard starting form, Katara waiting with a grin for a moment, then taking the offensive. She didn't do it often, but sometimes she liked to be the one to put the game in motion, and it took Zuko a bit by surprise when she did it.

He recovered quickly, spinning into a flashy kick, fire arcing out from the path of his foot, forcing her to bring up a wall of ice to take the brunt of the move. They ranged up and down the beach and Katara couldn't help but grin as she tripped him with a water whip, and he responded as he fell with a flame fist, leaping back to his feet in a gymnastic move Katara was still trying to learn from Ty Lee.

He closed, aiming a palm strike at her face, but she twisted, grabbing his wrist and forcing him to overextend and allowing her to throw him. He in turn gripped her, using his weight to drag her over with him.

They sprang apart, strike and counterstrike making the whole area wreathed in steam as thick as smoke. There was a pause as they both waited for the air to clear, panting and waiting. Katara was aware of the fact that they were both damp from sweat and steam, though he was worse from the water she'd used to lash him. But where she was sure she looked a complete mess, straggly hair, damply clinging clothing and sand on her from all the falls she'd taken.

Zuko was the same, but somehow, on him it looked really . . . good.

Her distraction was enough for him to make the rush at her work. Katara reacted, but not quickly enough, Zuko bearing her down to the ground, pinning her there and grinning triumphantly. She was about to congratulate him, then ask him to let her up, when he got a strange look on his face. Avid. Like he couldn't stop staring at her.

Zuko leaned in closer, closer, for some reason, Katara's breath caught in anticipation, then he was kissing her.

Someone was kissing her.

_Zuko_ was kissing her.

It was a little odd, a little awkward, then all of a sudden she figured out where everything was supposed to be, and it was just incredible. The way he was pressed to her, his lips on hers again and again. Katara gasped, felt her back arch, because she couldn't move her hands from where he had them pinned. It was enough to make him let go and lean in closer.

Unable to think of anything else, Katara just wrapped her arms around his shoulders, not caring about anything but letting the moment go on and on.

Eventually, though, the urgency wore off and they both sat up. For a moment, Katara was worried that he'd say something about it having been a mistake or . . . she didn't know what. But he just sat back against a boulder on the beach and pulled her against him, letting her settle her head on his shoulder. "You wanted to know what I was doing," he said. "I was trying to court you. I'd wondered why, if it wasn't working, you hadn't told me to knock it off."

"You were?" Katara asked, thinking of Ty Lee's tangled explanation and Yue's serenely maddening superiority. "Oh." Then she just had to ask, "Why?"

"Because you're beautiful and an incredible bender and I think I might be in love with you," he told her, looking a little embarrassed at the sudden spate of words.

She couldn't keep herself from asking, though. "Really?"

"Really," he told her.

"But, I'm not, though," she said. "I mean, I'm not that pretty-"

"Yes, you are," he said, fiercely. "The Water Tribe idiots who keep calling you ugly or whatever, they're jealous and they're scared of you, but they're also lying."

"Everyone?" she demanded bitterly. "Everyone's lying? All the boys in my waterbending classes? The other waterbenders? The girls?"

"I heard the Southern tribesmen seem to think of you as pretty," Zuko said. "What about them?"

"We're a small tribe," Katara said. "It's practically family down there. They'd say nice things even if I looked like a polar bear dog."

"Maybe your family," Zuko said, sounding bitter. "But I know from experience that family doesn't mean nearly as much as people want it to."

"Zuko . . ."

* * *

><p>Zuko turned sharply away from Katara. Either the Water Tribes had some sort of aggravating miracle cure for families who didn't care for each other sufficiently, or she was just that naive that she would think his family cared for him as much as they did Lu Ten and Azula. "Sometimes, Katara, family is just the people you have to live with until you don't have to live with them anymore."<p>

"Your mother and Lu Ten love you," Katara told him. "Yue agrees," she added. "Lu Ten talks about you a lot. And your mother-"

"My mother," Zuko snapped at her, "Is so caught up in 'helping' Azula, that she can't see that Azula's some sort of monster in human skin."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Katara said softly. "I'm sorry they've left you feeling that they don't care. I can't imagine how horrible that must feel."

The mood they'd shared, the one he'd had when he'd been able to just finally tell her how wonderful she was, was gone. "Let's head back to the palace," he said, feeling tired. "Just . . . forget everything, Katara. Maybe it's better this way."

"Maybe it's better what way?" she demanded. "You just practically said you love me. How can you just turn around and say it's all over before we've even tried?"

He glared. "You seem convinced that your family's lying to you, but you also trust them implicitly. Doesn't that strike you as a little strange? Maybe I'm right, and maybe you can't trust family any more than anyone else, because they're people like everyone else."

"Maybe you're just paranoid about it because you don't want to try anymore," she snapped back. "I can't believe you think that, just because your mother needs to try to help your sister-"

"Azula doesn't need help," Zuko snarled. "She needs to be locked away!"

"She's your sister!"

He threw his hands in the air. "Fine. Fine! I suppose nothing I say matters to you, just like it never matters to anyone else."

"If you say stupid things, you can't expect that people are going to listen to you!"

"So, now I'm stupid!"

"Well, you're sure acting like it!"

Furious, he just grabbed his things, and stormed off.

Because she seemed to be, somehow, just like everyone else in the end. She didn't believe him, not about how he felt, not about his family, not really, and he was just tired of trying so hard. Katara was amazing, but he wasn't sure it would be worth it if he couldn't trust that she trusted him to tell her the truth. They trekked back to the palace, Zuko fuming, but wondering what it was that Katara had to fume over. What had he said?

They ran into Azula. Naturally.

"Zuzu! Back from your secret assignation with the peasant?" she asked gaily. There was something manic about her eyes.

He tried to make her go away. "Azula, why don't I meet you later. We can spar, you can mock me mercilessly. Call it a friendly afternoon with your big brother."

He wasn't in luck. "So, little waterbender," Azula seemed worse than usual, and Zuko felt all too sure that Katara having gotten the better of her at the night of the formal ball was what had done it. "How does it feel to have gotten into the bed of a prince?"

"I wouldn't know," Katara said, sounding nervous. "Why would you think I would have?"

"Because Zuzu here's been all lonely ever since Mai left him. Why, I bet he's so full of pent up tension he's about ready to burst, isn't that right, Zuzu?" she asked, grinning. "Are you enjoying using him to get a little something out of it, or are you just a slut?"

Katara, against Zuko's frantically gestured 'No!', stepped up to Azula and said, "I think you're just trying to distract everyone from you, so they won't realise you're accusing me of everything you do."

Eyes suddenly blazing, Azula screamed in fury and started in on Katara.

Who ducked and dodged, but didn't defend herself, and Zuko suddenly realised Katara was at a disadvantage. There was no ocean of water here, only what she had in her waterskin. And if she wasn't careful . . . but why wasn't she bloodbending?

He had no time to find out, because Azula was winding up for the kill, and he flung himself between the two young women, blocking Azula with his own, ordinary, red fire.

"Stop! Stop it!" he heard his mother calling. He backed away, but kept himself ready.

"No," Azula said. "I'll have my place as the heir. _I_ should be next in line after Lu Ten, not Zuko. I'll win my place. Agni Kai big brother."

"No!" gasped their mother. "Azula, you don't know what you're doing!"

Azula shot their mother a wild grin and said, "I'm dealing with wittle baby Zuzu. So sad, isn't he?" she said. "I mean, always crying like a child about how I'm not nice enough to him, hurting his precious _feelings_. I just have to keep calling him that, he's such a baby, I doubt he'd understand grown up talk."

"Agni Kai, baby sister," Zuko agreed, recklessly. None of it mattered anymore. Perversely he was grateful for the whole mess. At least it would be done once and for all.

"Now," Azula demanded.

"No!" their mother gasped as Zuko said, "Whenever you'd like, Azula."

Somehow, between the entrance hall and the arena, someone had notified the whole of the palace complex, as Uncle Iroh was there, Lu Ten and half the nobles.

"You must do honour to the traditions that we all follow," Iroh began. "And-"

He never got to finish. Azula was out of patience with honour, tradition, decency and good sense. She screamed and flung fire at Zuko, who dove out of the way. As the fight wore on, Azula honestly trying to kill him, he was grateful for Katara's training. More, he was grateful for learning how to fight, not just spar honourably. As the time passed that he normally would have lost embarrassingly to Azula, he saw his sister's smug little grin vanish.

At first she frowned, and then she pitched a fit, flinging fire in every direction, speeding up and attacking Zuko with forms and styles he'd never seen before. Before Katara, he'd never have known what to do, would have panicked as he so often had before.

But now he was used to seeing something, Katara's waterbending, that he'd never seen, didn't know the right way to counter. He'd also learned some things that _Azula_ had never seen and wouldn't know how to counter.

As her blue fire raced to him, he stood his ground, waiting for it to strike, he silently thanked Katara for showing him how she and other waterbenders caught an opposing waterbender's attack and turned it back on them.

One deep intake of breath and her fire was caught, spun and transmuted to his own and sent back, not in the staccato she was used to, but in Katara's water whips. Fire given a shape and form, and Azula was caught off guard. Confused, unable to see what Zuko was doing, or how, she was forced, for the first time since she'd begun training in her gifts, to dodge. To go on the defensive. He felt a grin stretch across his lips, joy at the way it felt to win, to finally be on the side of the fight that wasn't always losing.

Azula made a last gambit, but was sent flying backwards into the wall by a perfectly timed kick, not even bending, just simple combat. She crumpled to the ground, dazed and beaten.

He looked up to where his family sat, his Uncle beaming in pride at him, Lu Ten confused and his mother looking lost. He bowed to them, feeling flush with victory.

"Prince Zuko has won his Agni Kai!" proclaimed his uncle. "He may now claim a reward, as he has not had a demand for his honour chosen, only the potential of forfeit at loss. What is your request, Prince Zuko?"

He paused, thinking. He had one of the things he wanted most, which was proving to everyone that he wasn't a pitiful excuse for a bender. What could, should he ask for?

Azula screamed in fury at her loss and Zuko didn't react quickly enough. A pain that was all too familiar enveloped him, and he thought he heard Katara scream his name. Then the pain came on, the burning sensation he'd felt once before as a child, and he fell with relief into the darkness.

When he woke, Katara was clinging to his hand and his mother was on his other side looking stunned. At first he thought he was inside, then he realised that the darkness he'd taken for the shade of a palace room was actually the dome of ice Katara had created over him. The next thing he noticed was, "Why isn't my face hurting? What . . . Katara? You . . . you healed it?"

Her voice sounding strange, his mother said, "She healed more than that, Zuko."

"What? I . . ." He trailed off. He was able to barely see his reflection in the ice as he sat up, it was so thick, and the face that looked back wasn't the one he was used to, it was unblemished. His hair would have to be shaved off to even out the growth lost to burning, but his skin was completely whole, the way it had been before that fateful day as a child when he'd gotten between his uncle and father. "I thought you said you couldn't heal scar tissue," he said to Katara, bewildered.

"I can't," she told him, looking tearful. "But Azula, she . . . she'd destroyed your whole _face_. I'm able to heal a fresh wound like that, you were lucky your eyes weren't badly damaged, but when I'm fixing something, it returns to its natural state. That is, the way it should be. Because she'd burned down past the scar tissue to the flesh underneath, I could fix it all."

The sign, the mark his father had placed on him, was gone. Zuko pulled her into a hug. "Thank you," he murmured into her ear. "I'm sorry about earlier."

"Me too," she said softly. "I was so scared she'd done worse to you."

"Where _is_ Azula?" Zuko asked as he stood. Katara obligingly melted away her dome, sending the water back to the canals around the arena.

"They've taken her away to be seen to by doctors," his mother said. "She didn't . . . she was raving, Zuko. Why didn't you tell me?"

It slipped out before he could temper his response. "I did."

Zuko said nothing else, but Ursa understood the rebuke in his words. All his years of claims of Azula's true personality had been borne out in that moment. "I am sorry," she said. "I've neglected you for her, haven't I?"

And because he loved his mother and knew she'd never meant to do it, he told her, "It's okay."

When she was called away a moment later, Zuko took advantage of the momentary lull to ask Katara, "Can we try this again?"

"Yes," she told him with a grin. "Also, Yue wants me to pass along to you that she will ensure that you never have children if you hurt me in any way, shape or form."

"Understood," Zuko said as the princess arrived on the grounds in time to hear that, led there by Lu Ten.

Lu Ten was frowning between them, his eyes particularly narrowed at Katara. "Why, when you were protecting Zuko from Azula, didn't you use that bending you did on her before?"

"Because I can only do that on the full moon," Katara explained. "I need more power to do it truly effectively on the spur of the moment. It's one thing when I have all the time in the world to gather concentration, it's another when I need to do it when someone's attacking."

He still looked sceptical, but allowed Yue to pull him away, the princess saying something about how he should be available to the Fire Lord at a time like this.

"Maybe," Zuko said as the crowd ebbed and flowed around them, "We should go somewhere quiet to . . . talk."

"I'd like that," she said, her blue eyes sparkling like the ocean waves in sunlight. "I'd like that a lot."


	10. Volta

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: Almost there . . . I may have run into some muse-related issues and shortened this fic so that it'll be done some time this century. Thanks everyone for waiting!

* * *

><p>Time passed, negotiations went on between the Fire Nation and both Water Tribes, Zuko and Katara grew closer, and Zuko quietly commissioned engagement combs from a jeweler down in the city, and managed to pry out of a few of the Southern Tribesmen the engagement practices of their tribes, and set that in motion as well.<p>

His afternoons sparring with Chief Hakoda and his men had been everything he'd ever wanted in acceptance and friendship, and he had already composed his arguments to give his uncle. He would ask to be named a permanent representative of the Fire Nation in the Southern Water Tribe. Even if Katara refused him (he couldn't think it, not really), he wanted to be somewhere that he was respected, that he had nothing hanging over his head.

There was a final feast to be held one month before the wedding. Yue needed the time for proper instruction on all the ritual of the ceremony, and tradition held both bride and groom prepared for a week before the ceremony itself was held. The morning before that feast, Zuko received a shock. He had been sparring, as he now did nearly every morning, with the Southern Tribesmen, when Katara arrived.

Hakoda had paused in his discussion of a particular disarming technique with Zuko. "Morning, Katara!"

"Hi Dad!" she called back.

"What?" Zuko said blankly. "_You're_ Katara's father?"

"Didn't I tell you?" Katara asked him.

He shot her a dark look. "No, you didn't."

"Oh, sorry," she said, _almost_ sounding like she meant it. Her eyes suddenly fixed on something behind him. "Sokka!" she cried and threw herself past him at a handsome young Watertribesman Zuko had never seen before. For a brief instant he was jealous, then suddenly recalled that she had an older brother named Sokka. An older brother who looked well on the way to being as intimidating as his father, and now that the three were standing together, the resemblance to their father was pronounced.

Katara clearly took more after her mother in looks, but her stance, solid yet flexible, relaxed yet ready, the look on her face, everything about her bespoke her father's influence, while Sokka looked like his father's son in his openness and ready grin as well as looks. "Nice to see you too, Katara."

"What are you doing here?" she asked him. "I thought you weren't . . ." Katara glanced around, then tried again. "I mean, with the whole," she gestured in a way that was clearly meaningful to Sokka.

The smile fell a little, and he said with a careless shrug that didn't look at all careless, "I just needed closure, you know?"

"Oh, Sokka," Katara hugged her brother. "I'm sorry."

Zuko watched the exchange, deeply uncomfortable, and started to edge away. "Zuko," Hakoda said, as though he were part of the exchange all along. Zuko didn't know whether to be grateful for that or not, but nodded his head at Sokka (_Prince_ Sokka, his mind told him. Just like Katara, as the daughter of the Southern Tribe's chief, was Princess Katara).

"Hey," Sokka said with that same lack of formality that so characterised these people from the frozen south. "Dad said in a letter that he'd been sparring with you, said he'd wondered about a face-off between us."

He whipped his head around to stare at the older man. There was a mischievous look on his face, and given that Sokka would have been trained by his father, given Katara's skills on the battlefield, he was suddenly very nervous about what he might be getting into. But pride made him say, "I'd be honoured."

"No need to be all formal," Sokka chided with a grin. "You want to go a round now?"

He essayed a careless shrug of his own in response, aiming for confidence. "If you're warmed up."

Sokka took one of the spiked clubs that Hakoda's men were so deadly with, a strange, oddly bent piece of metal in his hand, and settled without fanfare into a ready position within the sparring area. Zuko promptly unsheathed his twin dao and gave them his usual quick twirl to be sure of the balance in his hands, then sank into his ready position.

"Go!" shouted Hakoda from the sidelines, and in a moment similar to his first encounter with Hakoda, Sokka whirled his club around in a competent, but clearly testing first move, getting to know his opponent by response. Zuko, unsure of what Hakoda could have been thinking in having Sokka and Zuko challenge each other, did a double strike, right hand feint, left hand strike combination.

Sokka neither tried to turn the attack against his opponent, as his fellow Tribesmen tended to do, nor did he meet with a block as Zuko's Fire Nation opponents had.

He dove and rolled under the whole thing, coming up behind Zuko, nearly getting in a quick strike from behind.

A quick move with his one sword blocked the strike, while a quick leap onto Sokka's shoulders as he began standing from his crouch, allowed Zuko to combine a flashy backflip out of the way using Sokka as a springboard, and at the same time send the other staggering off-balance and away.

The opening moments set the tone for the whole fight. Sokka's technique wasn't as good as his father's, but it was because his natural talent and style meant he had somehow melded several styles into one, making everything he did unpredictable. He sank into a state of almost half-consciousness, acting and reacting on pure instinct to everything Sokka did.

It was pure joy, almost as amazing as any time he had spent bending with Katara. As with Hakoda, they tied, both of them stopping their weapons within inches of killing each other. "That was fantastic!" Sokka exclaimed. "Fighting Dad gets kind of boring, because I know him so well, you know?"

As they pulled apart, Zuko said, "Well, I can't say I've found that with him, but I know my old teacher, Master Kamon, is that way for me. He's a brilliant swordsman, but even though I only win half the time-"

"It's like there's no challenge because he's just not that interesting, even if he's just that good," Sokka finished. "Sorry Dad. You're boring. Awesome, but boring."

"Okay, now that the obligatory man stuff is over," Katara said, "My turn. Come on."

"What?" Zuko said, stunned. "You want . . . what?"

"No one here'll rat me out," she told him. "Now come on, Zuko, let's spar."

The fountain at the far end of the courtyard suddenly overflowed to Katara's feet, the water coiled and waiting, like a snake by its charmer. Zuko promptly took his swords off, passed them to Sokka, who looked gleeful as he started looking over the weapons with an expert's eye, and took his new ready position.

With the memory of his victory over Azula fresh in his mind, with the time spent practicing with Hakoda and his men, the sparring sessions with Katara had finally ceased to be exercises in frustration. He was still outmatched, but it was the kind of outmatched where she was no longer holding back, and if she took a stumble at a lucky moment for him, he could win. He _had_ won once, and the knowledge it was possible drove him.

Maybe it was the audience, maybe it was all his recent successes, maybe it was just that everyone there treated him as one of them, as an equal, and had never mocked his failures and didn't ever seem to care to in any unfriendly way, but he felt like he was moving faster and seeing more.

He didn't win, but neither did Katara. They tied, as she had with her brother. Her with a spike of ice inches from his heart, him with fire in his hand, right at her throat. Body to body, he wanted very badly to kiss her.

"I am so lucky you didn't bend while you were fighting me," Sokka said from behind him, reminding both of them they had an audience. Zuko hastily pulled away, hoping no one would notice how strongly he'd been reacting to Katara's proximity. Katara was equally flushed as she sent the water skirling back to its fountain.

Suddenly, Katara said, "Zuko, I know we were going to meet to spar on the beach later, but I haven't seen Sokka in so long-"

"It's fine," he said. After all, he suddenly had a plan he wanted to put in motion. It would require him to be horrible and princely at the seamstresses. "I just realised there are some things I want to do anyhow." He hastened to add, "Not that I want to miss the meeting, but-"

"No," Katara said, sounding just as hasty as he did. "That's fine," she assured him. "So, we'll . . . I mean . . . I'll see you later, right?"

He'd asked her to sit with him at the formal dinner before the feast and she'd accepted. Moreover it would allow him to sit near Hakoda, since his mother was attempting to make up for her accidental gaffe all those weeks before of sitting a state head at one of the lower tables by elevating Hakoda to prominence in this one, so there would be at least one person there not playing politics over dinner.

They said their farewells and Zuko hurried to the rooms the women worked to make the clothes of the royals. Within moments he'd insisted on changes to Katara's dress that changed it from the stylings of minor nobility to that of the highest members of the court, and something that a princess could wear.

He then hurried out to meet with Ty Lee, who he'd asked a special favour from a week before. She was waiting for him down by the docks, the items he'd requested in hand. "You're almost late," she told him. "I would have had to leave this with the harbourmaster."

"I know," Zuko said. "I'm sorry. I'm also sorry you won't be here any longer. Thanks for everything, Ty Lee."

She smiled and hugged him. For a moment, Zuko closed his eyes and just hugged her back. She'd become the little sister he'd wanted for so long over the past couple months, and now he didn't want her to leave. "You can always commission us to come perform at the wedding," she told him. "We'd be happy to."

"I think Mother's got her hands full with the entertainers as it is," Zuko told her wryly.

Ty Lee rolled her eyes. "Yue and I aren't stupid, Zuko. When you and Katara get married. Maybe you can do it at the South Pole. I've heard you can ride the penguins. It sounds so much fun!"

"So Katara says," Zuko said. "But how did you guess?"

"Katara, Yue and I got to talking. This stuff? And what you've commissioned? There's only one person who'd find that a really practical gift that you know." Ty Lee shook her head, smiling at him. "Go on. Don't forget to write!"

"Don't you forget either," Zuko told her. "I want to hear about everything you see on your way to Ba Sing Se! I didn't give you that dragon hawk for you to teach it tricks."

"Goodbye!" Ty Lee called as she raced back onto the ship carrying her circus troupe to the Earth Kingdoms. "I'll tell you all about everything!"

He watched them sail away until he couldn't distinguish Ty Lee waving from the stern before he turned to head home. He had to dress for dinner, then prepare everything for that evening. He'd do it after the feast, when he'd finally be able to sneak off with Katara during the dancing.

* * *

><p>The dress that arrived at Yue's quarters for Katara, from Zuko, was incredible. It also was as complicated as Yue's, and in the end, Yue had to help Katara get into it. Earlier than expected, Lu Ten arrived at their rooms, escorting Yue away.<p>

Katara found herself pacing nervously as she waited for Zuko. This whole trip to the Fire Nation had been strange, upending so many things she thought she knew. Not least of which had been the insistence of the Fire Nation men she'd met that she was pretty. She'd never thought of herself that way, but a bit of doubt that she was truly 'manly' was starting to creep in, because so _many_ of the men in the Fire Nation kept claiming she was pretty.

Zuko finally showed up, dressed in black and gold in a way that didn't clash with the stunning blue dress she was wearing and escorted her towards the hall. "You look beautiful," he told her.

"It's the dress," she said, blushing. "Really, Zuko, this is too nice for me."

"No," he said, looking at her with an intensity that made her flush more. "It's perfect."

A quick glance up and down the hall showed that they were alone for the moment, and she pulled his head down into a kiss. In a moment, Katara had completely forgotten they were trying to be discreet, because this was wonderful, and Zuko had pulled her close, kissing her back and making her sure he was enjoying it as much as she did. Finally they both needed to breathe, and he pulled back, resting his forehead against hers, "We . . . we should get to the hall," Katara said, resisting the urge to drag him back to her rooms and forget about the whole thing.

"Right," he said, his voice rough and unsteady.

They walked down the hall, carefully not looking at each other as they went the rest of the way, not wanting to be late, or worse, caught.

At first the feast went by without a hitch. Zuko walked Katara to her seat, next to her father, sitting on her other side. Yue looked beautiful at the head of the table next to Lu Ten. The food was incredible and Zuko fit in with her father's warriors so perfectly that Katara was momentarily swept away at the thought of him in the South Pole with her. She could imagine how amazed he'd be during the long summer days when the sun didn't go down, how a firebender could be the most sought-after during the long, dark months of winter, and how he'd be hers. He didn't belong in this stuffy city with its too-complicated rituals and manners.

Then common sense reasserted itself. She might be in love with him, and he might even love her too, but their lives were too different, too far apart for her to expect him to give up everything he had and the only life he knew. It was enough, now, that he'd shown her that she was far from the ugly she-man the Northern Tribe called her, made her feel pretty and brilliant and like it was okay for her to be more warrior than housewife.

It was only a few courses into the meal that Yue and Lu Ten disappeared. It was amazingly subtle, and Katara was startled to see that even the Fire Lord and Princess Ursa had seemingly missed the disappearance. "Where do you suppose Lu Ten and Yue've gone?" she asked Zuko.

He frowned, looking around the hall, filled with people chattering and unaware that anything might be amiss. "No idea. It's not like Lu Ten to skip out on his obligations."

"Or Yue," Katara admitted. "I'd just hoped there might be some," she thought a moment, then shrugged and said, "Fire Nation . . . tradition or something that they'd been doing."

Zuko shook his head. "No, nothing. But they'd better get back soon, mother won't be happy if they're not back in time to open the dancing."

Lu Ten returned, but Yue didn't come back with him. The final course had ended and she still hadn't returned. Katara watched as Princess Ursa spoke to Lu Ten, looking concerned. Then the Fire Lord, then Lu Ten said something, and his aunt lost all decorum as she half-shouted, "What do you mean she's gone!"

The shout garnered the attention of the entire hall. Princess Ursa didn't seem to notice, she was so appalled. Zuko was on his feet and heading for his mother and Katara hurried after her, vaguely noting her father was right behind her. "She left?" Princess Ursa was asking sharply as Zuko reached her side.

"Mother, perhaps we should at least take this somewhere private?" he suggested, taking her arm and trying to steer her away.

"Yue's gone to the South Pole with Sokka," Lu Ten said.

Katara's eyes went wide, and before she could stop it, she squeaked.

Zuko whipped around to stare at her. "What do you know?" he asked, forgetting about the display they were all causing.

"Nothing!" Katara said hastily. "Just . . . the morning she learned Arnook had engaged her to L – Prince Lu Ten, before she knew about the negotiations involving her at all," she amended, "Sokka had asked her to marry her, and she'd said yes."

Arnook looked positively furious. "She ran off with that bumbling-"

"What exactly are you saying about my son?" her father asked mildly, pulling out a knife and casually examining the edge.

Hastily backtracking, Arnook said, "Nothing, Hakoda. I was merely upset that my daughter, who should know better, has ruined these negotiations."

"There is that," the Fire Lord said, "But I wish to know, Lu Ten, what it is you had to do with this."

For the first time, Katara saw Lu Ten look abashed. He also looked defiant, however. "Yue didn't want to marry me, Father. She loves Sokka, and I couldn't bring myself to come between them."

Fire Lord Iroh looked tired as he said, "I appreciate your candour and your great heart, my son, but these negotiations are a delicate matter. Without the alliance created between the Water Tribes and the goodwill attached to it, I am afraid that most of the other agreements negotiated will no longer work."

"What, precisely, did you negotiate, Arnook," Hakoda asked, "That precludes an agreement unless your daughter is married to the Fire Nation heir?"

Arnook glared around impartially, and Katara noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that the whole of the Fire Nation court was now watching in a sort of horrified fascination, as if those on the dais were having a mudfight, or settling the issue in some other, equally childish and rude way. "Perhaps we _should_ take this somewhere more private," Princess Ursa admitted.

The Northern Chief didn't budge. "I simply refused to treat with someone who I could not trust to have his views moderated by the presence of a member of the tribes forcing him to deal honourably with us."

Katara saw a spark in the Fire Lord's eyes, something angry, but sternly repressed. He was clearly insulted at the slight to his honour and the value of his word, but had chosen not to take issue.

Zuko seemed to perk up suddenly, eyes narrowed. "Would you accept and agree to the terms if _any_ sufficiently high-ranked Water Tribe member were to marry into the royal family?" he asked. Katara stifled another squeak as his eyes flickered from her father to his mother. He wasn't going to suggest . . . ?

His mother caught the quick glance, looked at Hakoda a moment with a look that was equal parts intrigue and resignation. Hakoda looked startled. Arnook missed the whole exchange. "Of course I would," he said. "The important thing is the influence of one from outside the Fire Nation to defray . . ." he suddenly seemed to realise just how insulting he sounded and seemed to rethink what he was about to say, declaring instead, "Less-than-satisfactory behaviours as far as we're concerned."

"Anyone of about your daughter's rank?" Zuko pressed.

"What are you thinking, Prince Zuko?" the Fire Lord asked.

Zuko ignored his uncle, staring intently at Arnook. "Do we have your word on this? Your oath you would agree to the terms determined?"

"Of course," Arnook said dismissively. "I would honour those agreements if you found someone, but who would you have to replace _my_ daughter?"

"Chief Hakoda," Zuko said, turning his back on Arnook in a move that made the Northern Chief sputter in indignation. "Would you say that, within the Southern Tribe, your rank is effectively equal to that of Chief Arnook? You are a leader of your tribe to the same extent and way as him?"

Princess Ursa was looking at her son with a sort of appalled horror. Katara couldn't really blame her. If she'd had a son trying to sell her off like that, whether to bring about peace or no, she'd be pretty horrified too. She also couldn't look away. It was like two icebergs colliding. Incredible and terrifying at the same time. Her father looked suitably taken aback, his eyes now flicking back and forth between mother and son. "Yes, I supposed I would."

"So, your children would be the same rank, then, as Princess Yue," Zuko said.

Katara's heart leapt into her throat. Could he? Was he?

Her father's eyes suddenly snapped with cold fury. "I will _not_ be marrying my daughter off to your cousin," he said darkly. "He's far too old for her, as he was too old for Yue, and I will not sacrifice one of my children on the altar of convenience." His glare was reproving as he turned it on Arnook.

Arnook snorted. "The poor man wouldn't want to marry _her_ anyhow," he said derisively.

It stung, as it always did. But not as much.

Zuko seemed set on his course now, leaving nearly everyone stunned and Katara breathing faster and faster. Was he just doing this out of need? Even if he was doing it just because of the peace, she'd still look back on the proposal with affection. She'd call it her first, unlike that jerk who'd claimed he'd be doing her a favour by marrying such an ugly girl. "So, you would say her rank is equal?" he asked Arnook. "You would keep your sworn oath before the spirits to live by the treaties agreed-upon if she became part of the Fire Nation's royal family?"

"Zuko!" his mother was wide-eyed and horrified. Lu Ten was making small gestures with his hands, as though wishing to drag his cousin away, but unsure of whether he should. The Fire Lord looked . . .

. . . curious.

"Yes, of course," Arnook reiterated.

"Arnook," her father grated out.

A grin split Zuko's face, and he reached into his tunic, removing a pair of decorative hair combs. He held them out, and Katara could see they were silver, inlaid with small blue gems, tiny diamonds and tinier pearls, combined to create delicate images of seals, waves, penguins, icebergs and the Water Tribes' symbol in the middle. They were incredible and beautiful. "I commissioned engagement combs for you, Katara," he said. "From the jeweler in the market where we met. He finished them today. Do you like them?"

Speechless, she nodded.

Then he pulled out a pair of beautiful steel knives with scrolling designs running down the blade, sharp, with a hilt wrapped in blue and grey dyed leather. These were general purpose items, equally good for gutting a fish, throwing or combat. "Yue told me that knives are one of the most frequent engagement pieces exchanged in the Southern Tribe. Katara . . ." he paused, then raised his voice to be clearly heard. "_Princess_ Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, would you do me the honour of being my wife?"

Katara heard a murmur from the crowd, caught sight of Ursa and Lu Ten gaping like landed fish and Arnook, clearly stunned at the thought. Fire Lord Iroh, however, seemed very pleased.

She looked at her father. He seemed almost sad a moment, then he said. "If it's what you truly want, Katara, I cannot object. He seems a good man."

"Yes," she said softly. Then, as she realised _Zuko had just proposed to her_, "Yes!" She flung herself at him and kissed him, uncaring that some people were muttering about public impropriety.

It seemed too short a time before he pulled away. "Can I put the combs in?" he asked, a little plaintive. "Only, it's tradition, you know."

"Of course," she said, stepping back. "Can I have the knives? They're so gorgeous!" He handed them over, then did something to put the combs into her hair. Katara immediately slipped the sheathed weapons into the familiar spot at her side where she'd always carried knives into battle. She'd never had to resort to them, but her father had always insisted she have _something_ other than bending, just in case.

Zuko stepped back, seemingly surveying her, and the smile on his face said he liked what he was seeing. "I love you," he told her. "I can't wait to see what your home looks like."

"There's not much there," Hakoda said rather dryly. "Water Master Pakku has come south and is doing his best to make up for lost time, but I do believe Kanna's distracting him."

"Dad," Katara said hastily, "Can we _please_ not talk about Gran-gran and Pakku. It's . . . brrr." She shivered.

Her dad made a face. "You're not the one who's had to sit across from them at the dinner table."

"Now can we go somewhere private?" Ursa asked, almost plaintive herself.

"That does sound like an excellent idea," the Fire Lord said. He stood and declared. "Musicians! Begin to play. We still have an engagement to celebrate!" Even as the royal family, Arnook, her father and herself headed into an antechamber, finally, people were already beginning to both dance and gossip about the very public display.

The moment the door had closed behind them, Arnook declared, "You can't be serious in wanting to marry the chit. You don't even know . . ." he seemed to struggle a moment, then pointed at Katara, "She's the one you call the White Terror!"

Her father erupted in fury. "Arnook! How dare you!" He was trembling with the difficulty of restraining himself. "First you will not allow her the recognition she deserves, and now you're attempting to use the very position _you forced on her because your warriors weren't good enough_ to get her hurt!"

"Well," said the Fire Lord contemplatively, as though violence weren't about to erupt in front of him. "It would seem that we no longer require the fishing rights in Turtle Seal Bay, or the guarantees of noncompetition for whale meat."

"What?" Arnook was startled out of his smugness.

Zuko wrapped an arm around Katara's shoulders, and she happily leaned into him. "Didn't you know the extra concessions were because your daughter was inadequately educated in self-defence by our standards?" he asked the chief. "Katara, as one of the greatest warriors of your people certainly needs to offer us no such assurances about her capabilities against assassins."

"No," Lu Ten said. "And _I_ would like a rematch some time," he told Katara. "I'd love to spar with you again."

She smiled back. "So would I. I really _was_ close to the edge when they called a halt. I really don't know if I'd have won if you hadn't slipped on that patch of ice."

Arnook was still caught up in his shock. "But she's a girl," he protested. "And the fact that she's a warrior just proves how unnatural she is. She probably can't even _have_ children."

Ursa's look of disgust, the Fire Lord and Lu Ten's sheer incredulity and Zuko's warm arm around her gave her a sort of courage that not even her father could have given her. Because family was one thing. They were _supposed_ to help you and tell you nice things, but these others had no reason to look at Arnook like that, to look at her like that, save that they meant it. "Arnook? Just keep away from me, and try to remember that there isn't a single bender in the North Pole that can beat me."

It was a mere thought, and the water from all the vases in the room exploded into spikes of ice that slammed into the floor around him, leaving him trapped.

"That's my girl," her dad said. Then he turned to Zuko. "Now, son, I do like you. But if you're going to be my son in law, there's a conversation or two we have to have." Katara giggled at the look on her fiancé's (her _fiancé!_) face as her father steered him out the door and down the hallway.

Ursa wrapped an arm around her shoulders and steered her out of the room and down the hall herself. "Well," she said, "I do see why Zuko's been harassing the tailors, but have you tried any red? It _is_ the colour you'll be married in here."

Katara looked at the older woman, nervous. "Lu Ten brought Yue and me some clothes to wear out to the market to fit in. Yue and Ty Lee said I looked nice in red."

"There's no need to look like that, dear," the second-highest authority in the Fire Nation said. "But Zuko's my son and I want to know the woman he's clearly been sneaking around behind my back with."

"I didn't . . . I mean, we weren't-"

"I can't imagine otherwise than that it was you who's made him so happy, who's given him all the confidence he was lacking and has brought us both far closer than we were," Ursa told her, smiling. "I just hope you'll both come home sometimes."

Katara smiled back. "Oh, we will. I love your oceans here. They're so _warm_!"

They easily chatted about wedding dresses the whole way back to the hall, where they were met by Zuko, who looked quite stunned, and Hakoda, who smiled and offered an arm to Ursa. "Perhaps we should discuss matters ourselves?" he asked.

"Your father is terrifying," Zuko muttered into Katara's ear as they got onto the dance floor.

"He can be," Katara agreed. "But don't think about that right now. Just dance with me, Zuko."

And they did.


	11. Epilogue

Disclaimer: I own nothing here that anyone can recognise from their tv screens.

Notes: Annnnnd done! I know this epilogue wasn't really worth waiting for, but I have a confession to make. I've gotten distracted by _Primeval_, and for the next little while I'm probably not going to be doing any AtLA fics besides getting to the end of Airbender's Child: Other Perspectives. I hope you all can forgive me. So, without further ado, I give you the epilogue.

* * *

><p>The royal wedding went ahead on schedule, mainly because the key parts that were specific to the bride and groom had yet to be started or were simple enough to adapt, such as hemming the bridal gown to fit Katara instead of Yue.<p>

The wedding and the week leading up to it was as lovely as it could be, considering that the bride had to be tackled by Lu Ten and dragged back to the suite where she was supposed to be in contemplation of the infinite. Four times. When Zuko stopped by after one of his tiresome traditional displays of manly bending prowess, he discovered Katara had hidden the daughter of one of the dignitaries in her suite and had struck a deal with the girl.

"Sweetness here promised me she'd get me dropped off on Kyoshi Island on her way to the South Pole in exchange for food," Toph Beifong said cheerfully. Katara, in direct defiance of Fire Nation tradition had a plate of chicken lizard and noodles in front of her and a stack of fruit tarts.

"Excuse us a minute," he said to the blind girl, and dragged Katara to a corner. "What are you doing? You can't leave that girl alone on some random island, no matter how miserable she is at home."

"Why not?" demanded Toph from the other side of the room.

Katara had a sweet smile on that Zuko didn't trust for a moment, but he loved her and he trusted her not to be evil, so when she told him to meet Toph in a particular field at the city limits, he did it. When he came back the next afternoon, the day before the actual wedding ceremony, he stomped past the servants and his startle mother, bruised, battered and covered in a layer of dirt. "Fine, I agree," he told her. "But I'm never trusting you again when you smile like that."

"Like what?" Katara asked, smiling.

"Like that," Zuko groused, and stomped back out the door, muttering the whole way about violent women.

The actual ceremony went perfectly, the wedding night was even better, and a few days later they were on a boat, accompanied by Toph, who instantly ingratiated herself to the Water Tribe sailors by being possibly more crass than they were.

It was a sharp learning curve for Zuko, who'd never needed to learn about ships. Now that he was part of the Tribes, even if only by marriage, he had to know about it, so he did his best. And if the rigging and jibbing and rudders and sails and everything was all ancient Air Nomad dialect to him, the freedom of the ship and the open seas was refreshing. The time that wasn't spent helping as best he could with the ship was spent tussling with Toph and curled up with Katara, unwilling to do anything more lest they be overheard by someone on the ship.

Toph was dropped off, as promised, on Kyoshi. She and Katara promised to write each other just as soon as Toph had someone she'd trust to read and write her letters for her. Then they made their way to the South Pole.

Zuko's first impression was of sheer sparkling white. Then of masses of black and white bodies. Hakoda sighed in a way that conveyed the feelings of a parent who's come home to the sight of finger paint on every wall of the home. "I told Sokka to get the penguins out of the settlement, not keep them in the main square."

"What, exactly, did you tell him?" Katara asked her father.

"To get the damn things out of the way," the chief said.

Katara laughed. "I'm sure they're out of the way. I'm also sure Sokka's got some scheme with the village kids going."

"Why I ever thought he'd make a good chief after me," Hakoda grumbled as he went off to complain to Bato, who'd actually sympathise with his plight.

They docked, and Zuko looked around at the people who'd come to greet them. A white-haired, tall, disapproving-looking man stood next to a grey-haired woman. "Gran-gran!" Katara exclaimed, and ran up to the woman. "It's so good to see you again!"

The older man walked up to Zuko and fixed him with a dark glare. "So, you're the man who's married my best student," he said.

It was unpromising, but he was already married to Katara and her father didn't seem to hate him, so he'd deal with this. He bowed low, as he would to any master bender back in the Fire Nation, saying, "I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Master Pakku."

"Oh, no need to be so formal!" Sokka said, coming up behind him. "Gran-Pakku's a big softy, isn't he?"

"I told you never to call me that," Pakku said to Sokka. He followed this by locking Katara's brother up in a block of ice up to his neck with a gesture.

Zuko resolved never to irritate the water master. "I hope we can discuss matters of bend-" Zuko started to try to make it clear he wasn't like Sokka, when Katara's grandmother came over.

"Oh, Pakku," she said with a sigh. "You're always such a stodgy old man." She looked Zuko up and down, then said, "Call me Gran-gran. Everyone does."

"Uh . . ." was the only response he could muster.

In spite of the strangeness of being among people who never stood on ceremony, except Pakku, and having a brother-in-law in Sokka, who was sometimes the strangest person Zuko knew, he came to love the South Pole, which was the first place he ever got to make a first impression himself, without ever having his mother or father or sister or uncle or anyone else make it for him, before he'd even met a person.

He loved the Midnight Sun celebrations, the incredible feelings that came from the sun being up all day and all night. He much less liked the endless winter nights of the pole, but he'd agreed that Katara had been away from home long enough that it was only fair she get to spend the whole year there.

Standing beside Katara for the celebration of the first sunrise, marking the beginning of the end of the winter months, Zuko knew he'd found his home. Not in this sometimes miserably cold place, and not in the Fire Nation they'd be returning to after Katara's year at home, but with the place he had that he'd earned, that no one begrudged him, with friends he could laugh with, and with his teacher, friend, lover and wife. He'd found that home with Katara.

* * *

><p>When they finally returned to the Fire Nation, Yue and Sokka coming to tender proper, personal apologies for nearly wrecking the treaty, Zuko was nervous. Katara knew he was, but she couldn't think why. Instead she just reminded him of how nice it was to be somewhere warm, thinking of the beautiful, clear, sandy beaches with all that warm water.<p>

And then they were so close to the docks where Katara had first seen Zuko and his family, Yue standing beside her, but everything else so different. Including the fact that she didn't have to make a good impression on her in-laws, since she and Zuko were already married. With that thought, she tossed off her outer robe and dove into the clear blue water. When she came up, she saw Zuko and Sokka's shocked faces, Yue laughing beside them.

She called up, "The water's perfect, Zuko!"

Zuko thought a moment, then kicked off his shoes, shed his outer layers and dove in after her. Katara burst into giggles, hearing Sokka shout, "Katara! You're a bad influence!"

They played a bit, but since the ship was outpacing them, she towed them both with her bending to the docks, hurtling past the boat, then created something rather like a geyser and blasted them both into the air. They landed, laughing and dripping next to his family. "People are going to talk," Zuko told her, laughing even as he tried to pretend he was a stern and forbidding husband.

"Let them," Katara said. "This is a family visit and we're heading home to the South Pole later."

He laughed again and steamed himself dry while Katara bent the water out of her clothes. "Hello, Mother," he said.

She blinked. "It's good to see you again, Zuko." She shot him a narrow-eyed look. "I see you've shed some of the formalities."

"It does no good in the Southe Pole," he told her with a shrug. "All it does is get Kanna to harass me."

"Call her Gran-gran," Katara insisted for the hundredth time. When would he get over his need to be all formal with family?

"And wind up on the wrong side of Master Pakku? No," he told her.

The boat had caught up to them and docked by that point. "Mother, Uncle, Lu Ten, I don't believe you were ever properly introduced to Sokka, Katara's brother and now Yue's husband," Zuko said, formally bowing to his family as he introduced Sokka.

"You're going to be a bad influence on my children," Sokka informed his sister. "I'm not letting you anywhere near them." Since Katara felt the same way about him, and knew that they'd both give in and ask each other to babysit anyhow, she just stuck her tongue out at her brother.

"This, from the man who still penguin sleds?" Zuko asked him.

That was true too, of course.

The Fire Lord smiled beneficently and said, "You must tell me more of this penguin sledding, Prince Zuko. It seems like a most entertaining pastime."

At the palace, Katara dragged Zuko into the hot springs on the palace grounds. Floating in the beautifully hot water, her wonderful husband by her side, she knew she had found that perfect point of balance. Warrior and wife, fire and water, and not one thing excluding her being another, least of all the husband she'd sometimes been sure she'd never have. But Zuko loved her as both the woman who cooked for him and mended his clothes, and as the warrior she'd become in the war, and whenever she didn't think she was as pretty as the girls, he'd make her feel beautiful all over again.

And even though they'd be travelling between her home and his for the rest of their lives, that didn't matter, because he was her home.


End file.
